This is a list of solar telescopes built in various countries around the world. A solar telescope is a specialized

telescope A telescope is a device used to observe distant objects by their emission, absorption, or reflection of electromagnetic radiation. Originally meaning only an optical instrument using lenses, curved mirrors, or a combination of both to observ ...

that is used to observe the

Sun The Sun is the star at the center of the Solar System. It is a nearly perfect ball of hot plasma, heated to incandescence by nuclear fusion reactions in its core. The Sun radiates this energy mainly as light, ultraviolet, and infrared radi ...

. This list contains ground-based professional observatory telescopes at optical wavelengths in chronological order. Solar telescopes often have multiple focal lengths, and use a various combination of mirrors such as coelostats, lenses, and tubes for instruments including spectrographs, cameras, or

coronagraph A coronagraph is a telescopic attachment designed to block out the direct light from a star so that nearby objects – which otherwise would be hidden in the star's bright glare – can be resolved. Most coronagraphs are intended to view t ...

s. There are many types of instruments that have been designed to observe Earth's Sun, for example, in the 20th century solar towers were common.

Ground telescopes

Optical telescopes

Telescopes for the Sun have existed for hundreds of years, this list is not complete and only goes back to 1900.

Potential future optical telescopes

Radio telescopes

Other types of solar telescopes

There are much smaller commercial and/or amateur telescopes such as ''Coronado Filters'' from founder and designer David Lunt, bought by

Meade Instruments The Meade Instruments (also shortened to Meade) is an American multinational company headquartered in Watsonville, California, that manufactures, imports, and distributes telescopes, binoculars, spotting scopes, microscopes, CCD cameras, and te ...

in 2004 and sells SolarMax solar telescopes up to 8 cmDavid Lunt biography, Solar Filter designer
Mos
solar observatories
observe optically at visible, UV, and near infrared wavelengths, but other things can be observed. * CERN Axion Solar Telescope (CAST), looks for solar

axions An axion () is a hypothetical elementary particle postulated by the Peccei–Quinn theory in 1977 to resolve the strong CP problem in quantum chromodynamics (QCD). If axions exist and have low mass within a specific range, they are of interes ...

from the early 2000s onwards *Multi-spectral solar telescope array ( MSSTA), a rocket launched payload of UV telescopes in the 1990s *

Leoncito Astronomical Complex The El Leoncito Astronomical Complex (Spanish: Complejo Astronómico El Leoncito - CASLEO) is an astronomical observatory in the San Juan Province of Argentina. CASLEO is one of two observatories located within El Leoncito National Park, which i ...

, has a submillimeter wavelength solar telescope. *

Owens Valley Solar Array The Owens Valley Solar Array (OVSA), also known as Expanded Owens Valley Solar Array (EOVSA), is an astronomical radio telescope array, located at Owens Valley Radio Observatory (OVRO), near Big Pine, California, with main interests in studying th ...

, for solar radio observation

References

{{Portal bar, Astronomy, Stars, Spaceflight, Outer space, Solar System Refracting telescopes #