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

Abstract

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 H telescope and a Potassium (KI D1) Magneto-Optical Filter (MOF)-based telescope operating at 769.9 nm. 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 H telescope) to support Space Weather investigation and services.

Flare Forecasting Algorithms Based on High-Gradient Polarity Inversion Lines in Active Regions

“…Magnetograms from ground-based instruments (e.g. Cavallini et al 2002;Cavallini 2006;Scharmer et al 2008;Steward Puschmann et al 2012;Tadesse et al 2013;Del Moro et al 2017;Forte et al 2018Forte et al , 2020Giovannelli et al 2020) or on-board satellites (e.g. Scherrer et al 1995Scherrer et al , 2012Peter et al 2012;Berrilli et al 2015;Suematsu et al 2017) can be used to detect PILs.…”

“…Moreover, the small dependence on the exact threshold value, due to the topological definition of complexity rather than to an accurate estimate of the magnetic energy reservoir, allows a simpler application in the case of ground-based synoptic telescopes (e.g. Elsworth et al 2015;Gosain et al 2018;Hill et al 2019;Giovannelli et al 2020;Viavattene et al 2020;Calchetti et al 2020).…”

Sun CubE OnE: A multi-wavelength synoptic solar micro satellite

“…• ground based networks and synoptic observatories such as GONG (Harvey et al, 2011), Kanzelhöhe Observatory (Pötzi et al, 2021), MOTH (Jefferies et al, 2006) and TSST (Giovannelli et al, 2020).…”

Exploiting non-orthogonal eigenmodes in a non-Hermitian optical system to realize sub-100 MHz magneto-optical filters.

“…Ultra narrowband magneto-optical filters [27], which rely on complex refractive indices, are perfect candidates for non-Hermitian physics but have not yet been studied in this domain. Magneto-optical filters already see many applications in solar weather studies [28][29][30], laser frequency stabilization [31][32][33][34][35], LIDAR, [36][37][38], quantum hybrid systems [39], underwater optical communications [40] and ghost imaging [41]. Optimizing filters is a balance between maximizing transmission and minimizing bandwidth.…”