Abstract
CLIMSO is a suite of solar telescopes installed at Pic du Midi observatory in the southwest of France. It consists of two refractors that image the full solar disk in Hα and CaII K, and two coronagraphs that capture the prominences and ejections of chromospheric matter in Hα and HeI. Synoptic observations are carried out since 2007 and they follow those of previous instruments. CLIMSO, together with its predecessors, offer a temporal coverage of several solar cycles. With a direct access to its images, CLIMSO contributes to real time monitoring of the Sun. For that matter, the national research council for astrophysics (CNRS/INSU) has labelled CLIMSO as a national observation service for “surveillance of the Sun and the terrestrial space environment”. Products, under the form of images, movies or data files, are available via the CLIMSO DataBase. In this paper, we present the current instrumental configuration; we detail the available products and show how to access them; we mention some possible applications for solar and space weather; and finally, we evoke developments underway, both numerical to valorise our data, and instrumental to offer more and better capabilities.
Highlights
1.1 A brief history of solar observations at Pic du MidiThe Pic du Midi observatory is located on top of the Pic du Midi de Bigorre Mountain, near the cities of Bagnères-deBigorre and Tarbes in the south-west of France
We first give a thorough description of the instruments and image processing, we describe the database and the products one can find there; we describe the current and future evolutions of space-weather applications; and at last, we introduce a new instrument under development
Quantum efficiency in visible at 656.28 nm (Ha) is slightly below 80%, while at 1083.0 nm (HeI) it is lower than 1%. (Obviously, this camera was not designed for capturing near infrared photons.) Instances of pictures taken by C1 and C2 are shown in Figure 3
Summary
The Pic du Midi observatory is located on top of the Pic du Midi de Bigorre Mountain (latitude 42°5601100 N; longitude 0°0803400 E; altitude 2876 m), near the cities of Bagnères-deBigorre and Tarbes in the south-west of France. In the late 1990s, the Pic du Midi faced a severe budget situation and only two options were envisaged: closing down the whole observatory and ceasing all astronomical observations, or opening a part of the observatory to the public and searching external funding to maintain some of the scientific activities. In 2007, the French national research council for astronomy and astrophysics (CNRS/INSU) labelled the CLIMSO instruments as a national observation service for solar surveillance (SNO-6) This label, on top of the recognition it gives the project, allows the employment of dedicated staff and the allocation of funding at the national level (CNRS/INSU) or at the regional level (Toulouse University, Midi-Pyrénées observatory). Aperture (mm) Effective focal length (mm) Filter Filter k (nm) Filter Dk (nm) Resolution (arcsec/pixel) Exposure time (s) Cadence (min) First operation Image formats Movie format
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