The Indian National Large Solar Telescope (NLST)

Abstract

The Indian National Large Solar Telescope (NLST) will be a state-of-the-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 unaffected by monsoons are under evaluation. This project is led by the Indian Institute of Astrophysics and has national and international partners.

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. The telescope utilizes an innovative design with low number of reflections to achieve a high throughput and low instrumental polarization. High order adaptive optics is integrated into the design that works with a modest Fried's parameter of 7-cm to give diffraction limited performance. The telescope will be equipped with a suite of post-focus instruments including a high resolution spectrograph and a polarimeter. A detailed concept design of the telescope is presently being finalized and fabrication is expected to begin in 2010 with first light in 2014.