Narrow-Band Imaging System for the Multi-application Solar Telescope at Udaipur Solar Observatory: Characterization of Lithium Niobate Etalons

TL;DR

This paper details the development and characterization of lithium niobate Fabry-Perot etalons used in a narrow-band solar imaging system at Udaipur Solar Observatory, including calibration, tuning, and imaging results.

Contribution

It introduces a novel narrow-band imaging system using tandem lithium niobate etalons and provides detailed calibration and tuning procedures for solar observations.

Findings

Successful calibration of etalons for FeI 6173 Å and CaII 8542 Å lines

Effective temperature and voltage tuning of the etalons demonstrated

Solar images captured using the developed system show promising results

Abstract

Multi-application Solar Telescope is a 50 cm off-axis Gregorian telescope that has been installed at the lake site of Udaipur Solar Observatory. For quasi-simultaneous photospheric and chromospheric observations, a narrow-band imager has been developed as one of the back-end instruments for this telescope. Narrow-band imaging is achieved using two lithium niobate Fabry-Perot etalons working in tandem as a filter. This filter can be tuned to different wavelengths by changing either voltage, tilt or temperature of the etalons. To characterize the etalons, a Littrow spectrograph was set up, in conjunction with a 15 cm Carl Zeiss Coud\'e solar telescope. The etalons were calibrated for the solar spectral lines FeI 6173 {\AA}, and CaII 8542 {\AA}. In this work, we discuss the characterization of the Fabry-Perot etalons, specifically the temperature and voltage tuning of the system for the spectral lines proposed for observations. We present the details of the calibration set-up and various tuning parameters. We also present solar images obtained using the system parameters. We also present solar images obtained using the system.