Solar Physics, Vol.249, 2008, pp.197-220
Y.Suematsu, S.Tsuneta, K.Ichimoto, T.Shimizu, M.Otsubo, W.Katsukawa, M.Nakagiri, M.Noguchi, T.Tamura, Y.Kato, H.Hara, M.Kubo, I.Mikami, H.Saito, T.Matushita, N.Kawaguchi, T.Nakaoji, K.Nagae, S.Shimada, N.Takeyama, T.Yamamuro
Abstract:
The Solar Optical Telescope (SOT) aboard the Solar-B satellite (Hinode) is
de-signed to perform high-precision photometric and polarimetric observations
of the Sun in visible light spectra (388-668 nm) with a spatial resolution of
0.2-0.3 arcsec. The SOT consists of two optically separable components:
the Optical Telescope Assembly (OTA), consisting of a 50-cm aperture Gregorian
with a collimating lens unit and an active tip-tilt mirror, and an accompanying
Focal Plane Package (FPP), housing two filtergraphs and a spectro-polarimeter.
The optomechanical and optothermal performance of the OTA is crucial to attain
unprecedented high-quality solar observations. We describe in detail the
instrument design and expected stable diffraction-limited on-orbit performance
of the OTA, the largest state-of-the-art solar telescope yet flown in space.
