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J. Harvey (NSO), SOLIS Team
SOLIS (Synoptic Optical Long-term Investigations of the Sun) is a project to replace several of NSO's existing synoptic instruments with a modern, state-of-the-art observing system. It will provide the community with full disk vector and high sensitivity longitudinal magnetograms, narrow spectral band images at several popular wavelengths, and sun-as-a-star spectra, all with good cadence and calibration. The project started in early 1998 and should be in operation in 2001. The system is designed to be movable and will be initially installed on top of the Kitt Peak Vacuum Telescope tower. A new equatorial mounting has been built and is temporarily located at the GONG observing site in Tucson. The Integrated Sunlight Spectrometer (ISS) is a fiber-fed double-pass spectrograph equipped with a thinned, back-side illuminated CCD camera. The ISS has produced good spectra from the K line to the 1083 nm He I line. The current effort is on development and implementation of spectrophotometric calibrations. A 50-cm aperture Vector SpectroMagnetograph (VSM) is designed to produce full disk (and also smaller areas) vector and high sensitivity magnetograms and 1083 nm maps. The VSM is currently being fabricated and assembled. A key part of the VSM is a custom CCD camera that produces 300 frames per second of spectropolarimetric data. The required CCDs have been produced with good yield, but the full camera system is behind schedule. A filter-based imager, the Full Disk Patrol (FDP) will produce digital images in a number of well known lines. It is designed to acquire simple Dopplergrams as well as intensity images, but does not make magnetograms. The FDP uses two filters, one for 1083 nm and a tunable one for 380-680 nm. The first filter is essentially complete while the second one is under construction. A vital element of SOLIS is the data handling system which acquires, reduces and distributes data. First generation acquisition software has been implemented with the ISS. A storage area network system will buffer the real time data at the observing site. This has been procured and tested. A 45 Mb/s data line is being installed between Kitt Peak and Tucson to allow rapid transfer of large volumes of data. Data reduction algorithms are being tested. Assistance with design issues has generously been provided by HAO, Lockheed-Martin, the University of Hawaii, and the US Air Force group at Sac Peak. NASA and the ONR have provided funds to augment the development of SOLIS. The major funding comes from the NSF Office of Multidisciplinary Activity and the NSO base budget.
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