What is the Solar Flare Telescope?

Located in the western part of Mitaka Campus, the Solar Flare Telescope is the Solar Science Observatory’s prime ground-based instrument for solar observation. The 15-cm telescopes and 20-cm telescopes were installed when we started observation in 1990. We measured solar magnetic field distributions, gas flows in the solar atmosphere, changes in the shape of sunspots, and also observed solar flares in the hydrogen H-alpha line. In 2007, we started to reconfigure the Solar Flare Telescope to use a 15-cm telescope and two 12.5-cm telescopes. Since 2010, we have observed the full solar disk. Currently, we use three telescopes to observe the full-disk magnetic field of the solar chromosphere through infrared polarization observations; the full-disk image of the solar chromosphere through H-alpha line observations; the full-disk image of the photosphere through G-band and continuum observations; and the full-disk image of the chromosphere through Ca K line observations.