Solar telescope

However, recently newer narrower filters and higher framerates have also driven solar telescopes towards photon-starved operations.

Professional solar observatories may have main optical elements with very long focal lengths (although not always, Dutch Open Telescope) and light paths operating in a vacuum or helium to eliminate air motion due to convection inside the telescope.

The Sun, being the closest star to earth, allows a unique chance to study stellar physics with high-resolution.

Amateurs use everything from simple systems to project the Sun on a piece of white paper, light blocking filters, Herschel wedges which redirect 95% of the light and heat away from the eyepiece,[4] up to hydrogen-alpha filter systems and even home built spectrohelioscopes.

[citation needed] With a conventional telescope, an extremely dark filter at the opening of the primary tube is used to reduce the light of the Sun to tolerable levels.

The problem is that even reduced, the full spectrum of white light tends to obscure many of the specific features associated with solar activity, such as prominences and details of the chromosphere.

Specialized solar telescopes facilitate clear observation of such H-alpha emissions by using a bandwidth filter implemented with a Fabry-Perot etalon.

The Swedish Solar Telescope at Roque de los Muchachos Observatory , La Palma in the Canary Islands
McMath–Pierce solar telescope observing room
Public event organized to observe the Sun with solar telescope and solar glasses
Diagram of a Herschel Wedge and other solar viewing methods
Daocheng Solar Radio Telescope in China