[2] Initially named New Solar Telescope (NST), first engineering light was obtained in December 2008, and scientific observations of the Sun began in January 2009.

On July 17, 2017, the NST was renamed in honor of Goode, a former, and founding director of NJIT's Center for Solar-Terrestrial Research and the principal investigator of the facility.

[3] The GST is capable of observing the Sun in visible to near-infrared wavelengths and features a 1.7-meter primary mirror in an off-axis Gregorian configuration that provides a 1.6-meter clear, unobstructed aperture.

A reflective, liquid-cooled circular field-stop in the primary focus before the secondary mirror limits the field of view to 120 arcseconds in order to reduce the solar heat load on subsequent optics.

With its single deformable mirror (DM), the CAO system has been routinely used since 2010 for the vast majority of observations and serves all post-focus instruments except CYRA.

In 2016, the BBSO multi-conjugate AO (MCAO) called Clear with its three identical 357 actuator DMs enjoyed a successful first light trebling the corrected field of view by strongly reducing anisoplanatism.