Abstract:
The National Large Solar Telescope NLST will be a state-ofthe-
art 2-m class telescope for carrying out high-resolution studies of the
solar atmosphere. Sites in the Himalayan region at altitudes greater than
4000-m that have extremely low water vapor content and are una ected by
monsoons are under evaluation. This project is led by the Indian Institute
of Astrophysics and has national and international partners. Its geographical
location will fill the longitudinal gap between Japan and Europe and is
expected to be the largest solar telescope with an aperture larger than 1.5 m
till ATST and EST come into operation.
NLST is an on-axis alt-azimuth Gregorian multi-purpose open telescope
with the provision of carrying out night time stellar observations using
a spectrograph at the final focus. The telescope utilizes an innovative
design with low number of reflections to achieve a high throughput and low
polarization. High order adaptive optics is integrated into the design that
works with a modest Fried parameter of 7-cm to give di raction limited
performance. The telescope will be equipped with a suite of post-focus