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J. Harvey (NSO/NOAO), SOLIS Team
The SOLIS (Synoptic Optical Long-term Investigations of the Sun) project is a three-year effort to replace some of NSO's old synoptic observing equipment. The three instruments are a vector spectromagnetograph, a full-disk monochromatic imager, and an integrated sunlight spectrometer. An operational start is planned for February 2001. Data from these instruments will be promptly placed in the NSO Digital Library for public use. In addition to regular synoptic observations, the instruments will also be available for campaign use. Of greatest interest to flare studies are capabilities for monochromatic imaging in H-alpha, He I 1083 nm and Ca II 393 nm, and vector magnetograph mapping using the 630.2 nm Fe I line. The instruments use one arc second pixels. Custom CCD cameras in the focal plane of the spectrograph cover 0.29 nm in 128 pixels simultaneously in two orthogonal states of polarization at 630 nm. The frame readout rate is 300 per second with a signal-to-noise ratio of about 400. The spectromagnetograph scans a full disk image of the sun in declination with an east-west aligned slit at a typical rate of 0.5 arc sec per second. This means that a large active region may be recorded in less than 2 minutes with a polarimetric sensitivity of 0.0002. With increased (decreased) noise, up to ten times faster (slower) scanning is possible. The data formats will be consistent with community standards to enable easy use with other solar data. The NSO is one of the National Optical Astronomy Observatories which are sponsored by the National Science Foundation.
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