Solar observatory

Solar Monitoring Observatory aboard ISS
Apollo Telescope Mount was a manned solar observatory in orbit on Skylab in the 1970s (ATM at the center of the "X")

A solar observatory is an observatory that specializes in monitoring the Sun. As such, they usually have one or more solar telescopes.

The Einstein Tower was a solar observatory in the Albert Einstein Science Park in Potsdam, Germany.

Solar observatories study phenomena associated with the Sun. The Sun, being the closest star to earth, allows a unique chance to study stellar physics with high-resolution. It was, until the 1990s,[1] the only star whose surface had been resolved. General topics that interest a solar astronomer are its 11-year periodicity (i.e., the Solar Cycle), sunspots, magnetic field activity (see solar dynamo), solar flares, coronal mass ejections, differential rotation, and plasma physics.

Some examples

See also

References

  1. ↑ Burns, D.; Baldwin, J. E.; Boysen, R. C.; Haniff, C. A.; et al. (September 1997). "The surface structure and limb-darkening profile of Betelgeuse". Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. 290 (1): L11–L16. Bibcode:1997MNRAS.290L..11B. doi:10.1093/mnras/290.1.l11.

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