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 Institute for Geophysics, Astrophysics und Meteorology
 
 
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Instruments

Patrol-Telescope for Solar Observation



Telescope Mounting and Tracking

The patrol- or surveillance telescope comprises several refractors on a combined parallactic mounting. It was built at the beginning of the 70īs of the last century and since then it was continuously improved. Originally the tracking was done by 2 pairs of photodiodes in the light path of the Hα-telescope. In perfect alignment they were all exposed equally. If they were not equally lightened a differential signal was generated from which a correction of the hour angle and the declination was obtained. Since the appearance of the 1 MPix CCD camera the tracking is micro processor-contolled out of the calculated current solar position. A cross-check and fine correction is done by the analysis of the solar image position in the focus of this camera.
3D-Model overall view...
3D-Model telescope arrangement...


Continuum for Sunspot Drawings

Refractor d/f = 110/1650 mm with an attached projection device for the draft of sunspot drawings. Due to mirrors in the light path the drawing is side reversed (W is left!). The enlargement of the solar disk to a diameter of about 250 mm corresponds to a magnification factor of about 100.


Continuum for Photoheliogramms

Photosphere Camera (PhoKa), refractor d/f = 130/1950 mm with a band-pass filter at 546 nm with 10 nm FWHM. It is in operation since 1989. The primary focus image is magnified by a projection lens, which has very low distortion, to a diameter of about 87 mm. A B/W film with a size of 13x16 cm is used as a detector.
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Kanzelhöhe Photosphere Telescope (KPT), Refractor d = 130 mm and an effective focus length f = 1460 mm with a band-pass filter at 546 nm with 10 nm FWHM. The instrument is a reconstruction of the above described telescope for the Photosphere Camera and operational since July 2007. The focus length reduction allowed the implementation of the KPDC system in the primary focus.
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3D-Model optical path...

Kanzelhöhe Photosphere Digital Camera (KPDC), with a 4 MPix 10bit CCD-Kamera: Since July 2007 a JAI Pulnix TM-4100CL on a Silicon Software ME-III Frame Grabber is in service, the frame rate of about 10 frames/sec allows the application of frame selection for image enhancement. The exposure time of about 2.5 - 25 ms is automatically controlled for constant density. The normal image rate is 1 image/min.
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Hα-Telescope

Refractor d/f = 100/2000 mm with a band-pass filter at spectral line Hα (656.3 nm). The Lyotfilter made by Zeiss has a FWHM of about 0.07 nm. As a thermal protection an interference filter with a FWHM of about 10 nm is in the light path. The Lyotfilter can be tuned by turning the polarizers in narrow boundaries with little degradation of the filter characteristics. So also observations in the line wings of the solar Hα line are possible (max. ±0.15 nm). A beam splitter allows the application of two detectors at the same time.
Kanzelhöhe Hα Patrol Instrument (KHPI) 3D-Model optical path...

System 1: High Cadence Hα Imaging System


1 MPix 8bit CCD-Camera: Since 1997 until mid of July 2005 a Pulnix TM-1001 on a Dipix XPG-1000 frame grabber was in service. The frame rate of about 15 frames per sec. allowed the application of frame selection for image enhancement. The exposure time of about 2.5 - 25 ms was automatically controlled for equal density. Until the beginning of 2000 every day only a few images were taken. Since 2000 every min. a image was taken, during flares the sequence was increased to 5 pictures per min.

1 MPix 10bit CCD-Camera: In mid of July 2005 a Pulnix TM-1010 on a Coreco PC-DIG frame grabber and a new comfortable software replaced the old 1 MPix 8 bit CCD-camera. Apart from the higher dynamic range, which made it necessary to regard the dark current, all other parameters remain unchanged.

System 2: High Resolution Hα Imaging System

4 MPix 14bit CCD-Camera: With the use of Apogee KX-4 on an Apogee PC-ISA interface card instead of the film cartridge Kanzelhöhe Observatory became a base station of the Global Hα Network. The rate of images was 1 /min at a fixed exposure time of 30 ms. Because of the mechanical shutter and the slow read-out of the camera frame selection wasnīt possible. Dark current frames were taken daily; Flatfields (Kuhn-Lin method) only at bright sky once a day.

4 MPix 12bit CCD-Camera: Since mid of January 2008 a Pulnix TM-4200GE with Gigabit Ethernet interface replaces the Apogee KX-4. A frame rate of 7 frames/sec permits again the application of frame selection to benefit from moments of good seeing, the exposure time is considerably shorter (from ca. 4 - 25 ms) and is controlled automatically in oder to achieve evenly exposed image series. The image acquisition rate is 1 img/min. Dark current frames are recorded daily, the flat field is much more uniform than with the Apogee KX-4, so that we do not obtain flat field frames (Method Kuhn-Lin) normally.

Film-Cartridge with 35 mm film: It was in service since the beginning of the operation of the telescope in 1975 until 2000. One cartridge contained about 45 m 35mm B/W-film (24x36 mm), i.e. about 1000 exposures. Altogether a sum of 515 films was exposed. Under normal conditions 1 picture every 4 min. was taken. Several times a day double exposed images were taken for illustration of prominences. An electronic controlled shutter exposed the film for about 0.02 bis 1 sec.

Kanzelhöhe Electronic Archiving System - KEAS

Soon after the implementation of digital image acquisition systems the development of an integrated data management and archiving system started. KEAS connects with LAN technology data and image acquisition systems (like sensors, or CCD-camera with frame grabbers and their hosts) with process- and archiving servers and mass storages like RAID- hard disk systems, streamer or CD/DVD- drives. It supports the observer via an intranet portal with online forms for data input and data control of the automated observations.

Central European Solar Archives - CESAR

CESAR is the public portal to KEAS and offers the users access to the online- archives of the Kanzelhöhe Observatory.

MetCam Weather Camera System

On request of the Central Institute for Meteorology and Geodynamics a camera system for support of the visual weather observations was developed. A rotor for a commercial webcam was constructed, which is controlled by the camera. Today there are three camera systems in operation at exposed locations in Carinthia. The software package CamVis was also developed at Kanzelhöhe Observatory for this camera system. This software allows the visualization of panorama and time series of weather cameras and also of other graphical resources for weather analysis. A version with lower functionality and contents of general interest can be accessed freely under http://wetterbox1.kso.ac.at.
The recent weather panorama at Kanzelhöhe is shown on the lower part of homepage of the observatory.

Semi Automatic Weather Station

The air temperature and the humidity in a height of 2 m, the surface temperatur in a height of 5 cm, the ground temperature in 10, 20, and 50 cm depth, the sunshine duration with a Campbell-Stokes sunshine-autograph and a Solar 111 - Haenni, the precipitation and the snow height as well as wind speed and direction are measured automatically. Beyond that, personal measurements of the rain, snow height and the amount of fresh snow are performed. The observation duty includes also the weather observation at regular times. The observations are executed at the vicinity of the observatory in cooperation with the Central Institute for Meteorology and Geodynamics.

UV-B Network Austria

Austrian Federal Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry, Environment and Water Management has launched a project to monitor UV radiation. One of these monitor stations is Kanzelhöhe. Sensors comprehend not only a broad band instrument for determining global radiation and a filter instrument, which spectral resolution is tuned on the erythem effect function of the skin, but also instruments fo retrieve electronically meteorological parameters such as air temperature, relative humidity as well as sunshine duration.
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Solar Irradiation

For a broad-band recording of the solar irradiation at the surface radiometers for UV-A and UV-B, as well as for the photosynthetic active radiation and further pyranometers are operated continuously at a platform on top of the observatory building.

 
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