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The Tor Vergata Synoptic Solar Telescope (TSST): A robotic, compact facility for solar full disk imaging

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Papers from SWICo members

Luca Giovannelli, Francesco Berrilli, Daniele Calchetti, Dario Del Moro, Giorgio Viavattene, Ermanno Pietropaolo, Marco Iarlori, Vincenzo Rizi, Stuart Mark Jefferies, Maurizio Oliviero, Luciano Terranegra, Neil Murphy

By the continuous multi-line observation of the solar atmosphere, it is possible to infer the magnetic and dynamical status of the Sun. This activity is essential to identify the possible precursors of space weather events, such as flare or coronal mass ejections. We describe the design and assembly of TSST (Tor Vergata Synoptic Solar Telescope), a robotic synoptic telescope currently composed of two main full-disk instruments, a Hα telescope and a Potassium (KI D1) magneto-optical filter (MOF)-based telescope operating at 769.9 nm.

Optical scheme of the MOF-based channel of the TSST. Lenses and mirrors are indicated in black, lters in green, polarization selector in red, MOF section in blue and WS section in orange. Top panel shows the polarization selector and the MOF section between two folding mirrors. The picture was acquired during the assembly phase of the channel. From Calchetti et al. 2020

TSST is designed to be later upgraded with a second MOF channel. This paper describes the TSST concepts and presents the first light observation carried out in February 2020. We show that TSST is a low-cost robotic facility able to achieve the necessary data for the study of precursors of space weather events (using the magnetic and velocity maps by the MOF telescope) and fast flare detection (by the Hα telescope) to support Space Weather investigation and services.

Publications: Giovannelli L., Berrilli F., Calchetti D., Del Moro D., Viavattene G., Pietropaolo E., Iarlori M., et al., 2020, JSWSC, 10, 58. doi:10.1051/swsc/2020061. https://www.swsc-journal.org/articles/swsc/full_html/2020/01/swsc200063/swsc200063.html

Daniele Calchetti, Giorgio Viavattene, Luciano Terranegra, Ermanno Pietropaolo, Maurizio Oliviero, Neil Murphy, Start M. Jefferies, Luca Giovannelli, Dario Del Moro, and Francesco Berrilli, Proc. SPIE 11445, Ground-based and Airborne Telescopes VIII, 114452T (13 December 2020); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2562454

Calchetti D, Viavattene G, Berrilli F, Del Moro D, Giovannelli L, Oliviero M. 2020. Journal of Physics Conference Series, Vol. 1548. https://doi.org/10.1088/1742-6596/1548/1/012005

Viavattene G, Calchetti D, Berrilli F, Del Moro D, Giovannelli L, Pietropaolo E, Oliviero M, Terranegra L. 2020. Il Nuovo
Ciment C (Ed.), Vol. 43 of Il Nuovo Cimento C, 120 p. https://doi.org/10.1393/ncc/i2020-20120-6