The first science flight of the balloon-borne Sunrise telescope took place in June 2009 from ESRANGE (near Kiruna/Sweden) to Somerset Island in northern Canada. We describe the scientific aims and mission concept of the project and give an overview and a description of the various hardware components: the 1-m main telescope with its postfocus science instruments (the UV filter imager SuFI and the imaging vector magnetograph IMaX) and support instruments (image stabilizing and light distribution system ISLiD and correlating wavefront sensor CWS), the optomechanical support structure and the instrument mounting concept, the gondola structure and the power, pointing, and telemetry systems, and the general electronics architecture. We also explain the optimization of the structural and thermal design of the complete payload. The preparations for the science flight are described, including AIV and ground calibration of the instruments. The course of events during the science flight is outlined, up to the recovery activities. Finally, the in-flight performance of the instrumentation is discussed.

We present an overview of the National Science Foundation’s Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope (DKIST), its instruments, and support facilities. The 4 m aperture DKIST provides the highest-resolution observations of the Sun ever achieved. The large aperture of DKIST combined with state-of-the-art instrumentation provide the sensitivity to measure the vector magnetic field in the chromosphere and in the faint corona, i.e. for the first time with DKIST we will be able to measure and study the most important free-energy source in the outer solar atmosphere – the coronal magnetic field. Over its operational lifetime DKIST will advance our knowledge of fundamental astronomical processes, including highly dynamic solar eruptions that are at the source of space-weather events that impact our technological society. Design and construction of DKIST took over two decades. DKIST implements a fast (f/2), off-axis Gregorian optical design. The maximum available field-of-view is 5 arcmin. A complex thermal-control system was implemented in order to remove at prime focus the majority of the 13 kW collected by the primary mirror and to keep optical surfaces and structures at ambient temperature, thus avoiding self-induced local seeing. A high-order adaptive-optics system with 1600 actuators corrects atmospheric seeing enabling diffraction limited imaging and spectroscopy. Five instruments, four of which are polarimeters, provide powerful diagnostic capability over a broad wavelength range covering the visible, near-infrared, and mid-infrared spectrum. New polarization-calibration strategies were developed to achieve the stringent polarization accuracy requirement of 5×10−4. Instruments can be combined and operated simultaneously in order to obtain a maximum of observational information. Observing time on DKIST is allocated through an open, merit-based proposal process. DKIST will be operated primarily in “service mode” and is expected to on average produce 3 PB of raw data per year. A newly developed data center located at the NSO Headquarters in Boulder will initially serve fully calibrated data to the international users community. Higher-level data products, such as physical parameters obtained from inversions of spectro-polarimetric data will be added as resources allow.

The first science flight of the balloon-borne Sunrise telescope took place in June 2009 from ESRANGE (near Kiruna/Sweden) to Somerset Island in northern Canada.

Abstract. Coronal Multi-channel Polarimeter (CoMP-S), developed by HAO/NCAR, has been introduced to regular operation at the Lomnicky Peak Observatory (High Tatras in northern Slovakia, 2633 m a.s.l.) of the Astronomical Institute of Slovak Academy of Sciences. We present here the technical parameters of the current version of the instrument and its potential for observations of prominences in the visual and near-IR spectral regions. The first results derived from observations of prominences in the Hα emission line taken during a coordinated observing campaign of several instruments in October 2012 are shown here. Keywords. solar instrumentation, spectroscopy, prominencesThe Coronal Multi-channel Polarimeter (CoMP-S) was installed on the coronagraph (Lexa, 1966) of the Lomnicky Peak Observatory of the Astronomical Institute of SAS in March 2011 and nowadays it performs regular observations. The CoMP-S instrument (Kučera et al., 2011) is based on the concept of the CoMP instrument installed nowadays at the Maona Loa Observatory (Tomczyk et al., 2008). Its core is a tunable 4-stage Lyot filter equipped with a Stokes polarimeter. It can operate in visible and near IR wavelength ranges from 500 to 1100 nm. This broad interval is allowed due to the latest achievements in polarizing materials: birefringent material VIS700BC4 by CODIXX and super-achromatic APSAW half-plates by ASTROPRIBOR. The following emission spectral lines of corona -Fe XIV 530.3 nm, Ca XV 569.5 nm, Fe X 637.5 nm, Fe XI 789.2 nm, Fe XIII 1074.7, 1079.8 nm -and prominences -He I 587.6 nm, H I 656.3 nm, Ca II 854.2 nm, He I 1083.0 nm can be observed. The Lyot filter bandpass width (FWHM) varies from 0.028 to 0.13 nm and its free spectral range is between 0.50 and 2.5 nm. Two orthogonal polarization states slightly shifted in wavelength are acquired simultaneously by two separate detectors. This allows subtraction of scattered light. The pco.edge sCMOS cameras by PCO are giving final image sampling of 0.33 arcsec/pixel and the FoV of 860×680 acrsecs (for wavelength of 656 nm).Examples of the CoMP-S observations are shown in Fig. 1. The data were taken during the HOP186 coordinated campaign "Mass loading of quiescent prominences from multiwavelength observations". A quiescent prominence was observed in the Hα spectral line tuning the filter to 9 positions across the spectral profile with four individual polarizations per wavelength step. The detector exposure time was 50 ms. Reduction has been done only in the Stokes I profile with binning of 4×4 pixels leading to the final spatial sampling of 1.3 arcsecs. Each spectral profile detected with maximum intensity greater than 4000 521 at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi