The Solar Optical Telescope of Solar-B (Hinode): The Optical Telescope Assembly

Abstract

The Solar Optical Telescope (SOT) aboard the Solar-B satellite (Hinode) is designed to perform high-precision photometric and polarimetric observations of the Sun in visible light spectra (388 – 668 nm) with a spatial resolution of 0.2 – 0.3 arcsec. The SOT consists of two optically separable components: the Optical Telescope Assembly (OTA), consisting of a 50-cm aperture Gregorian with a collimating lens unit and an active tip-tilt mirror, and an accompanying Focal Plane Package (FPP), housing two filtergraphs and a spectro-polarimeter. The optomechanical and optothermal performance of the OTA is crucial to attain unprecedented high-quality solar observations. We describe in detail the instrument design and expected stable diffraction-limited on-orbit performance of the OTA, the largest state-of-the-art solar telescope yet flown in space.