Solar G-band observations at Merak, Leh/Ladakh

Abstract

G-band observations are important for the study of dynamics of magnetic features in the solar photosphere and they are carried out using large telescopes, larger than 30 cm. We installed a 40 cm DFM telescope at one of the good sites (Ref:Site survey report submitted to Dept. of Science and Technology, India) in India; Merak in the district of Leh/Ladakh. We designed, fabricated and installed a back end instrument which involves a band-pass filter at G-band wavelength (430.5nm) to carry out observations of the solar photosphere on regular basis. In this paper, we report the installation of the telescope and the solar observations made with this back-end instrument. We present the details about the instrument used, data calibration and comparison with similar data obtained from space. We also discuss how the system can be improved for better quality images in the near future.