Imaging spectroscopy of the Sun is a challenging task usually performed with Fabry-Perot etalons. The common setup is a combination of two or three etalons in series and a narrow-band prefilter. The requirement of one, usually expensive prefilter for every desired wavelength limits the number of spectral regions that can be observed. We present a novel instrument combination consisting of two Fabry-Perot etalons and a grating spectrograph, which allows for observations in any wavelength between 390 nm and 660 nm without the need for narrow-band prefilters. Furthermore, two or more adjacent monochromatic images are projected on the detector, each image corresponding to a different spectral transmission peak of the Fabry-Perot filtergraph. Together with our Zurich Imaging Polarimeter (ZIMPOL) the system is installed at the telescope of the Istituto Ricerche Solari Locarno (IRSOL) where it will be used for two-dimensional spectropolarimetry. We present a description of the instrument and test observations.

Date Published: 9 July 2008
PDF: 9 pages
Proc. SPIE 7014, Ground-based and Airborne Instrumentation for Astronomy II, 701414 (9 July 2008); doi: 10.1117/12.787923

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 7014:
Ground-based and Airborne Instrumentation for Astronomy II
Ian S. McLean; Mark M. Casali, Editor(s)