Important information

The EST Project –focused on the conceptual design study of the European Solar Telescope– finished successfully in 2011. This webpage is no longer updated but is kept available as a repository of useful information for interested people.

SOLARNET –a project bringing together and integrating the major European research infrastructures in the field of high-resolution solar physics– is a new website where can be found updated information about the work to contribute towards the realization of the EST.

Presentation

EST European Solar Telescope is a pan-european project, presently in its Conceptual Design Study financed by the European Commission, involving 29 partners, plus 9 collaborating institutions, from 15 different countries.

EST is a project promoted by the European Association for Solar Telescopes (EAST), a consortium with the aim, among others, of undertaking the development of the telescope, to keep Europe in the frontier of Solar Physics.

EST is a 4-meter class solar telescope, to be located in the Canary Islands. It will be optimised for studies of the magnetic coupling between the deep photosphere and upper chromosphere. This will require diagnostics of the thermal, dynamic and magnetic properties of the plasma over many scale heights, by using multiple wavelength imaging, spectroscopy and spectropolarimetry. To achieve these goals, EST will specialize in high spatial and temporal resolution using instruments that can efficiently produce two-dimensional spectral information.


This project comprises 29 international beneficiaries working together towards The European Solar Telescope Design Study. This project is funded by the European Commissions 7th Framework programme under contract number 212482.