Udaipur Solar Observatory (USO) Labs
The Udaipur Solar Observatory (USO) was founded in 1975 and is situated on an island in the middle of the Lake Fatehsagar. The sky conditions at Udaipur are quite favourable for solar observations. The large water body surrounding the telescopes decreases the amount of heating of the surface layers. This decreases the turbulence in the air mass and thereby improves the image quality and seeing. The main objective of obtaining the high spatial and temporal resolution observations of solar photospheric and chromospheric activity is to understand the various dynamic phenomena occurring on the surface of the Sun.
1. Multi Application Solar Telescope (MAST): 50 cm off-axis telescope for high resolution observations. It is having alt-azimuth mount for solar tracking, thermal control for the entire system for obtaining good image quality.
- Adaptive optics for correcting the image distortion due to atmospheric seeing.
- Back-end instruments for narrow wavelength band imaging.
- Polarimeter for polarization measurement for solar magnetic field observations.
- High resolution multi-slit spectrograph for spectral studies.
2. SPAR telescope : 6 inch, low scatter refractor, for full-disk and moderate resolution solar observations.
Adaptive optics is a technique that helps in real-time correction of the aberrations in an optical system due to turbid media. It has found useful in astronomy and vision sciences for high-resolution imaging, free-space optical communication, laser beam shaping, and many more.
USO is involved in the research of Adaptive optics with a primary aim of achieving high-resolution solar observations.
- Solar telescope: A Coude telescope with an aperture diameter of 15 cm is installed outside the laboratory. This telescope is being served as a light feed for the testing of optical components and the development of prototype instrumentation.
- Laser interferometer: Zygo make laser interferometer for optical metrology applications; primarily, for precise alignment of MAST telescope mirrors after recoating.
- A compact spectrometer for calibration of optical filters and for spectroscopic studies. Resolution of the instrument is 6Å/mm.
- A random phase screen generator for simulating atmospheric turbulence effects to help AO research activities
- A prototype of an adaptive optics (AO) system is developed in the laboratory using a light feed from a 15 cm solar telescope. This development helped us in understanding the different components of the adaptive optics system. With the experience gained, an AO system for Multi-Application Solar Telescope (MAST) is developed
- A prototype narrow-band imaging system for solar observations is developed by employing Fabry-Perot (FP) etalons. In this regard, a spectrograph is developed to calibrate the FP etalons. Later, a similar system with fewer modifications is installed for MAST
- Calibration of polarimeter package for imaging based spectro-polarimeter
- Calibration of Monomorph Deformable mirror for high-order AO system