Ground-based Solar Instruments

Responsible person: Christophe Marqué 

Overall description
The goal of this Work Package is to provide the observational support to the SIDC forecasts, to the STCE and to the whole scientific community. For that purpose, we will develop and upgrade existing optical instruments on the Uccle Solar Equatorial Table (USET; optics, filters, image sensors) and install frequency-agile radio spectrographs and single-frequency radiometers on several existing parabolic antennas of the Humain station. Those radio telescopes will thus be fully refurbished and adapted to the current needs of Solar-Terrestrial research and monitoring. All this development and observing work will be carried out in full collaboration with foreign institutes and in the context of international observing networks. 

Long Term Goal
This work package will allow maintaining and developing STCE's capacity and infrastructures for ground-based solar observations. A fully operational ground-based monitoring facility, combining optical and radio data, will allow the STCE to participate actively to emerging world-wide multi-station virtual observatories supporting space weather services and solar science exploitation.