Fast Solar Polarimeter: First light results

NAGARAJU, K.; FELLER, A.; IGLESIAS, F. A; SOLANKI, S.K.

Congreso; American Geophysical Union, Fall Meeting 2013; 2013

American Geophysical Union

Accurate measurements of magnetic fields on the Sun are crucial to understand various physical processes that take place in the solar atmosphere such as solar eruptions, coronal heating, solar wind acceleration, etc. The Fast Solar Polarimeter (FSP) is a new instrument that is being developed to probe magnetic fields on the Sun. One of the main goals of this polarimeter is to carry out high precision spectropolarimetric observations with spatial resolution close to the telescope diffraction limit. The polarimeter is based on pnCCD technology with, split frame transfer and simultaneous multi-channel readout, resulting in frame rate upto 1 kHz. The FSP prototype instrument uses a small format pnCCD of 264x264 pixel2 which has been developed by PNSensor and by the semiconductor lab of the Max Planck Society. The polarization modulator is based on two ferro-electric liquid crystals (FLCs) interlaced between two static retarders. The first solar observations have been carried out with this prototype during May-June, 2013 at German Vacuum Tower Telescope on Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain. Here we present the instrument performance assessments and the first results on the magnetic field measurements. Further, we briefly discuss about the next phase of FSP which will be a dual beam system with 1k x 1k CCDs.