Solar Phys (2017) 292:106

DOI 10.1007/s11207-017-1127-y

First Observations from the Multi-Application Solar

Telescope (MAST) Narrow-Band Imager

Shibu K. Mathew1 · Ankala Raja Bayanna1 ·

Alok Ranjan Tiwary1 · Ramya Bireddy1 ·
Parameswaran Venkatakrishnan1

Received: 6 February 2017 / Accepted: 16 June 2017 / Published online: 3 August 2017
© Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2017

Abstract The Multi-Application Solar Telescope is a 50 cm off-axis Gregorian telescope re-

cently installed at the Udaipur Solar Observatory, India. In order to obtain near-simultaneous
observations at photospheric and chromospheric heights, an imager optimized for two or
more wavelengths is being integrated with the telescope. Two voltage-tuneable lithium-
niobate Fabry–Perot etalons along with a set of interference blocking filters have been used
for developing the imager. Both of the etalons are used in tandem for photospheric observa-
tions in Fe I 6173 Å and chromospheric observation in Hα 6563 Å spectral lines, whereas
only one of the etalons is used for the chromospheric Ca II line at 8542 Å. The imager is
also being used for spectropolarimetric observations. We discuss the characterization of the
etalons at the above wavelengths, detail the integration of the imager with the telescope, and
present a few sets of observations taken with the imager set-up.

Keywords Solar instrumentation · Imager · Fabry–Perot etalons

1. Introduction
The spatial resolution in solar observations is being increasingly improved by the availability
of larger diffraction-limited telescopes with lower scattered light. Some of the larger new
ground-based telescopes already in operation are the 1.6 m New Solar Telescope at Big
Bear (NST: Goode et al., 2010), the 1.2 m Gregor telescope on Tenerife (Schmidt et al.,
2012), and the 1 m New Vacuum Solar Telescope at Fuxian Lake (NVST: Liu et al., 2014).
At the Udaipur Solar Observatory (USO), we have installed a new 50 cm telescope named
the Multi-Application Solar Telescope (MAST: Mathew, 2009; Denis et al., 2008, 2010;
Venkatakrishnan et al., 2017), which recently started operations (Figure 1). Even though
it is relatively small, the telescope provides diffraction-limited images. The off-axis design
of the telescope also provides observations with less scattered light. Moreover, in order to
reduce the seeing induced by the mirrors, all of the telescope mirrors exposed to the outside

B S.K. Mathew
shibu@prl.res.in
1 Physical Research Laboratory, Udaipur Solar Observatory, Udaipur, 313001, India
106 Page 2 of 25 S.K. Mathew et al.

Figure 1 The Multi-Application Solar Telescope (MAST) installed on the island observatory at Udaipur,
India. The telescope is seen pointing towards the Sun, close to sunset. The yellow pipes seen in the back side
provide temperature-controlled clean air from a compressor to keep the temperature of the 50 cm primary
mirror at ±1 ◦ C of the ambient temperature.

environment are actively maintained at a temperature that is within ±1 ◦ C of the ambient

temperature. After alignment, the on-site tests of the telescope showed that the wave-front
error was smaller than λ/12, which met the design specifications. We currently take high-
resolution synoptic observations in G-band (4305 Å) and Hα (6563 Å) wavelengths using a
10 Å interference filter and a 500 mÅ narrow-band Lyot filter, respectively, for validating the
telescope performance under different thermal environments that are modulated by seasonal
changes.
We are integrating various back-end instruments with the telescope in order to exploit its
full potential. A low-order adaptive-optics system is currently being integrated and tested
with the telescope (Bayanna et al., 2008). The adaptive-optics system will provide seeing-
corrected diffraction-limited images for a field-of-view (FOV) of around 15 arcsecs. Another
instrument that is tested with the telescope is a scanning echelle Littrow multi-slit spectro-
graph, with five slits suitably separated to cover a spectral range of about 4 Å. This spectral
range includes the two Fe I lines around 6302 Å. The inclusion of the multi-slit improves
the scanning speed by five times compared with a single-slit spectrograph.
One of the primary scientific objectives of the MAST is to observe the magnetic field
in the solar atmosphere at different heights. To accomplish this objective, it is important
to select magnetically sensitive spectral lines originating at different heights and carry out
observation at these wavelengths. We have selected the Fe I at 6173 Å (g = 2.5) and Ca II
First Observations from MAST Page 3 of 25 106

8542 Å (g = 1.1) for the photospheric and chromospheric observations, respectively. In ad-
dition to these wavelengths, we also plan to make observations in the chromospheric Hα line
at 6563 Å. A narrow-band imager with two lithium-niobate Fabry–Perot (FP) etalon filters
in tandem is installed with the MAST telescope to obtain spectral images in the above wave-
lengths. In a previous article, we reported the characterization of the above filters carried out
using a 15 cm Coudé telescope (Bayanna et al., 2014). In this article we present the details of
the integration of this filter with the MAST telescope and also report some of the first results
obtained with this system. As far as we know, the system described in this article is one of the
first with a tandem configuration of two z-cut lithium-niobate etalons used for solar spectral-
line scan images. On the other hand, initial results from two y-cut lithium-niobate etalons
used along with the Zurich Imaging Polarimeter (ZIMPOL) were reported by Feller, Boller,
and Stenflo (2006). Furthermore, a double-pass z-cut lithium-niobate etalon is used in the
Imaging Magnetograph eXperiment (IMaX) onboard the Sunrise payload (Martínez Pillet
et al., 2011; Barthol et al., 2011).

2. Lithium Niobate FPs as Narrow-Band Imaging Filters

Some of the photospheric solar spectral lines that are used for magnetic and velocity field
measurements are as narrow as 100 mÅ. We need to scan these line profiles with adequate
spectral resolution in order to make useful measurements and interpretations. This could be
achieved by recording the spectral profiles using a spectrograph or by a tuneable narrow-
band filter. A spectrograph has the advantage of providing an instantaneous spectrum, in
contrast to the narrow-band filters, which have to be scanned in wavelength to obtain the
complete line profile. On the other hand, the capability of providing two-dimensional im-
ages, the availability of a narrow pass-band, and the fast wavelength tuneability make the
narrow-band filters as capable as the spectrographs. Narrow-band filters are preferred over
spectrographs for single-wavelength observations, which could be useful for making mag-
netograms and Dopplergrams, for example. Birefrigent Lyot filters are commonly used for
obtaining narrow-band images in selected wavelengths (Stix, 2004). In a conventional Lyot
filter, the wavelength tuning is carried out by mechanically rotating linear polarizers. This
increases the image acquisition time between each wavelength step, in addition to prob-
lems with the reproducibility of the tuning due to mechanical issues. FP etalons are used
for solar imaging, especially when the observations require rapid wavelength tuning. Air-
spaced piezo-driven FP etalons are in operation at several observatories for narrow-band
imaging required for solar magnetic- and velocity-field measurements (Kentischer et al.,
1998; Tritschler et al., 2002; Cavallini, 2006; Gosain, Venkatakrishnan, and Venugopalan,
2006; Scharmer, 2006; Bello González and Kneer, 2008; Puschmann et al., 2012a, 2012b).
Solid-state lithium-niobate etalons are being used in various solar projects instead of air-
spaced ones (Burton, Leistner, and Rust, 1987; Rust et al., 1996; Mathew et al., 1998; Kleint,
Feller, and Gisler, 2011; Martínez Pillet et al., 2011). Rust (1994) was the first to recognize
the usefulness of lithium-niobate etalon properties for solar astronomy applications. In par-
ticular, he was the first to describe their use as narrow-band filters for high-resolution solar
spectral imaging. This type of FP etalon is constructed around a thin (of the order of 200 –
600 µm in our case) lithium-niobate crystal, which has useful electro-optic properties. The
two faces of the crystal are polished to better than λ/100 and coated with highly reflective
dielectric and conductive indium-tin oxide (ITO). The ITO coating acts as the electrodes for
applying voltage across the crystal, which in effect changes the refractive index and provides
the capability for wavelength tuning of the FP filter. The advantages of using these etalons
over the air-spaced etalons are the following:
106 Page 4 of 25 S.K. Mathew et al.

i) In terms of FOV-dependent wavelength shifts, the higher refractive index (nominal value
reported in the CSIRO test report is 2.29 at 6173 Å (see also Rust, 1994)) of the crystals
makes it possible to use a smaller etalon thickness compared with air-spaced FP for the
same FOV observations.
ii) The parallelism is always maintained during tuning, as the reflecting surfaces are on
either sides of the solid-state polished crystal wafer.
iii) The etalon can be conveniently rapidly tuned electro-optically to various wavelengths.
This can be done faster than, or with a tuning rate similar to, that of the air-spaced
piezo-controlled etalons. Air-spaced etalons need an elaborate control mechanism to
dynamically maintain the parallelism during tuning, and the bandwidth of the control
system sets the tuning speed.

2.1. Voltage Tuneability of Lithium-Niobate FPs

The FP etalons produce transmission peaks in accordance with the Airy formula (Born and
Wolf, 2002),
 
2 δ
It = Ii 1 + F sin . (1)
2
Here, Ii and It are the incident and transmitted intensities, and F is the reflectivity finesse
given by 4R/(1 − R)2 , where R is the reflectivity. The finesse primarily determines the full-
width at half-maximum (FWHM) of the transmitted intensity profile. The phase shift [δ]
between consecutive transmitted beams is equal to 4π λ
μd cos θ . The condition for the trans-
mitted peaks to be at any given wavelength λ is given by mλ = 2μd cos θ , where m is an
integer (order of interference), μ the refractive index, d the separation between the reflective
surfaces, and θ the angle of incidence. The transmission peak wavelength can be changed
by changing the thickness, refractive index, the angle of incidence, or the etalon tempera-
ture. The transmission peaks are separated in wavelength by a free-spectral range (FSR),
which is equal to λ2 /2μd. In a practical etalon, the transmission peaks are closely spaced in
wavelength. In order to use the etalon as a narrow-band filter, one of the transmission peaks
is selected using a relatively broad-band interference filter that cancels out all of the other
undesired transmission peaks.
If the etalon is made of lithium-niobate, the crystal electro-optic property can be used
for the wavelength tuning. In our narrow-band imager the etalons are fabricated from z-cut
lithium-niobate crystals. In this configuration the dependence of the refractive-index change
on the applied electric field Ez is given by Yariv (1991)
1
no = n3o Ez r13 , (2)
2
which in turn gives a wavelength shift of
1 n2o V r13 λ0
λ = . (3)
2 d
Here, no is the ordinary refractive index of lithium-niobate at a wavelength λ0 , Ez is the
applied electric field across the crystal, d is the thickness, V the applied voltage, and r13 the
electro-optic coefficient of the lithium-niobate crystal. The half-FSR voltage that is required
to tune the etalon over the entire wavelength range between two transmission peaks is given
by λ0 /2n3o r13 . Taking the value of 6.28 pm/V for r13 (Mathew, 2003), we estimate the half-
FSR voltage at 6173 Å for the lithium-niobate etalon to be close to 5000 Volts. This is
more than the maximum applicable voltage, especially when the etalon is made of very thin
First Observations from MAST Page 5 of 25 106

Figure 2 Left: One of the lithium-niobate etalons as obtained from CSIRO. The etalon is mounted in a Delrin
fitting and is protected with two anti-reflection (AR) coated windows. The red wires supply high voltage to
either face of the etalon. Right: The etalon inside the temperature-controlled oven, the PT100 voltage amplifier
circuit is enclosed in the rectangular aluminum box seen at the top.

crystals, as the cross-electrode arcing could potentially damage or break the crystal. This
places a constraint on using the lithium-niobate etalon as a universal filter, especially when
it is used for multi-wavelength observations.

2.2. Etalons in Tandem

In order to use FP etalons as a narrow-band

√ filter for solar observations, the wavelength
spread [FWHM = λ2 (1 − R)/2πμd R] of the transmitted light should be narrow. In ad-
dition, the wavelength separation between the transmitted peaks should be large enough
to allow the use of a broad-band interference filter for blocking the undesired transmis-
sion channels from the etalon. This in effect reduces the intensity modulation that is due to
the blocking-filter profile while tuning the etalon over the desired wavelength range. With
practically achievable finesse (which includes reflectivity and fabrication finesse), a thicker
etalon is required in order to obtain a narrow-band pass. The increase in thickness implies a
closer pass-band wavelength spacing, and thus the use of a narrow-band blocking filter. By
combining two or more etalons with appropriate spacing ratios, it would be possible to ob-
tain a decreased FWHM and increased FSR (Kentischer et al., 1998; Tritschler et al., 2002).
The combined FWHM of the tandem configuration is given by
λ20
δλ =  , (4)
πμd F (1 + k)2
where k is the thickness ratio of the etalons. The appropriate spacing ratio to obtain the
suitable FSR with minimum leak from the “parasite” channels can be computed following
the method described by Kentischer et al. (1998).

2.3. Lithium-Niobate FPs for the MAST Imager

For the MAST imager we use two 60 mm, z-cut lithium-niobate FP etalons, procured from
the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO), Australia.
106 Page 6 of 25 S.K. Mathew et al.

Figure 3 Temperature stability

of the oven measured for FP1 at
6173 Å. The measurement is
made by using a spectrograph
with a plate scale of 8
mÅ pixel−1 . The profile bisector
method is used to determine the
shift in wavelengths in both the
spectra and the FP channels.

The coating of the etalons has a reflectivity of > 93% and an effective finesse of > 20
(specified at 6328 Å). The thicknesses of the etalons are 226 µm for FP1 and 577 µm for
FP2, which provides a spacing ratio of around 0.39. Since the exact value of the refrac-
tive index of the lithium-niobate crystal is difficult to determine, we have used the above
computed thickness values as the basis for ordering the etalons. The left and right panels
of Figure 2 show one of the etalons as procured from CSIRO and after installing it in a
temperature-controlled oven, respectively.

2.3.1. Temperature-Controlled Ovens

The refractive index of lithium-niobate varies with the operating temperature, which in effect
produces a shift in the pass-band wavelength. The dependence of refractive index on tem-
perature can be computed using the Sellmeier equations (Hobden and Warner, 1966). Our
etalons are kept at constant temperature in ovens in order to avoid any undesired refractive-
index change due to the change in ambient temperature. The oven is a two-cavity enclosure;
the inner cavity, where the etalon is mounted, is heated and monitored for stable tempera-
ture using PT100 sensors. The outer cavity is filled with a thermal insulator to prevent heat
leakage from the inner side. A microcontroller-based feedback circuit is used to set and sta-
bilize the temperature. After measurements using a spectrograph (a detailed discussion of
the spectrograph is presented in the next section), we determined that the ovens provide a
temperature stability of ± 0.2 ◦ C, which translates into a ± 5 mÅ wavelength stability. The
temperature stability of the oven is probably better than what we could measure with our
spectrograph, which has a plate scale of 8 mÅ pixel−1 . Figure 3 shows the result one of
such measurements carried out for FP1 (at 6173 Å) for more than four hours. The fluctua-
tions could be mostly due to the error in measurements. The profile-bisector method is used
to determine the peak spectral channel shifts. Moreover, the shift in all three of the FP1
transmission channels present in the spectral window is used for the computations, which
provides sub-pixel accuracy in determining the shifts. We calculated an r.m.s of ≈ 4 mÅ in
wavelength shift from these measurements. We plan to carry out similar measurements for
a much longer period, in order to see any effect of temperature changes that is due to the
lithium-niobate wafer heating from the input sunlight.
As mentioned previously, owing to the limitation in the maximum applicable voltage to
the etalon, tuning the etalon to any desired spectral line, or more than one line, requires a
temperature optimization. As the temperature cannot be changed and stabilized quickly, an
optimum temperature is normally obtained during the calibration and is fixed for further
solar observations. For our lithium-niobate etalons, the dependence of wavelength shift on
temperature is discussed in detail by Bayanna et al. (2014). In order to have appropriate
First Observations from MAST Page 7 of 25 106

Figure 4 Fe I 6173 Å pre-filter

profile. The measured FWHM of
the pre-filter is around 3.2 Å; the
dashed line is a fit to the
observed profile. The inset shows
the spectral image that is used for
obtaining the pre-filter profile;
the line marked with an arrow is
the Fe I 6173 Å line.

wavelength coverage, mainly for both Fe I 6173 Å and Ca II 8542 Å lines, we have fixed the
temperatures of FP1 and FP2 at 35 ◦ C and 28 ◦ C, respectively.

2.3.2. High-Voltage Power Supply Unit for FPs

To tune the lithium-niobate FP etalons during spectral line scans, DC voltages are applied
to the etalon. Voltages as high as ± 3 kV need to be applied to suitably cover the line pro-
files. For this purpose we used two zero-crossing low-ripple DC high-voltage power supply
(HVPS) units from Applied Kilovolts. The output of these HVPS units can be controlled
using low-input DC voltages. A high-precision 16-bit digital-to-analog converter (DAC714,
from Burr Brown) is used to provide these input voltages, which can give a resolution of
< 1 V in the high-voltage output. This corresponds to a 0.37 mÅ wavelength shift in the
case of FP1 at 6173 Å. The driver software is written in C++ to control the DAC voltage in
synchronization with image acquisition. A detailed description of the high-voltage power-
supply unit and its calibration can be found in the technical report by Mathew and Gupta
(2010).

2.4. Wavelength Selection Using Interference Filters

Since the etalons have peak transmission channels at closely spaced wavelength positions
separated by the FSR, suitable blocking filters are required to avoid transmission channels
other than the desired one. By changing the blocking filters, it is possible to select different
spectral lines. At present, we use three interference blocking filters (all obtained from An-
dover Corporation, USA) centered at 6173 Å (FWHM ≈ 2.5 Å), 8542 Å (FWHM ≈ 3 Å),
and 6563 Å (FWHM ≈ 2 Å) wavelengths. As the pass-bands of these interference filters
are also sensitive to temperature, they are enclosed in temperature-stabilized ovens with
< 0.5 ◦ C accuracy.
Figure 4 shows the transmission band-pass of one of the interference filters used in our
observations. The spectral image in the inset is obtained with the spectrograph described in
the next section. The profile shown is obtained by averaging the image in the slit direction.
The filter is centered at the 6173 Å wavelength; the dip in the peak transmission of the filter
is caused by the Fe I 6173 Å line.
106 Page 8 of 25 S.K. Mathew et al.

Figure 5 Spectral images from the Littrow spectrograph. Left: the spectrum includes the 6173 Å Fe I line
(fourth prominent line from the left). The spectral coverage is around 11 Å, with a sampling of 8 mÅ pixel−1 .
Right: The image is for Ca II 8542 Å. The sampling and spectral coverage is similar to the Fe I line. The white
and dark line plots represent the spectral profiles deduced from the image and the BASS2000 spectral atlas,
respectively.

3. Characterization of FPs

A Littrow spectrograph set up close to the imager is used to calibrate and characterize the
etalons. Earlier, we characterized both FP etalons using a similar spectrograph with a lower
spectral resolution in conjunction with a small Coudé telescope (Bayanna et al., 2014). We
set up the spectrograph permanently at the back-end of MAST for regular tests for any
spectral shifts or drifts of the FP etalons that are due to the ambient temperature variations
or any other reason. The computed resolution of the Littrow spectrograph we used for the
calibration is around 18 mÅ, whereas the sampling is made with an 8 mÅ pixel−1 plate
scale. A 15 µm slit is used to reduce the instrumental broadening of spectral profiles, while
the grating has a 600 lines mm−1 ruling. Figure 5 shows sample spectral images and their
profiles obtained from the Littrow spectrograph at around the Fe I 6173 Å and Ca II 8542
Å lines and its comparison with the profile from BASS 2000 solar spectral atlas.1 Similar
spectra were also obtained for the Hα 6563 Å line. As the spectrograph has a higher spec-
tral resolution than the narrowest FP etalon band-pass, we consider the above spectrograph
sufficient for the calibrations.
To characterize the FP etalons, we placed them in front of the spectrograph and then
recorded the channel spectra. As shown in Figure 6, an arrangement was made to sample
the solar spectrum and the channel spectrum simultaneously. The spectrum is dominated
by the FP’s transmission channels when the etalons are placed in front of the spectrograph.
Thus, this arrangement provides solar spectral lines as a reference to detect and measure the
shift in spectral position that is due to the thermal drift in the spectrograph during the char-
acterization of the etalons. This is especially crucial while measuring the voltage tuneability
of the etalons and when finding line-center voltages for different spectral lines.
In this arrangement, a part of the solar light is sampled before it enters the FP etalons;
it is directly introduced at the slit of the spectrograph. The light through the FP etalon and
the direct light were displaced vertically to provide simultaneous spectral channels and the
solar spectrum, much like the “deckers” used in the earlier version of the astronomical spec-
trographs. An example of this is shown in Figure 7. The upper panel shows both the solar
spectrum and the channel spectrum obtained for the FP2 etalon. The lower panel shows the
corresponding mean profiles for the boxed regions from the upper panel. Since both the
channel spectrum and the corresponding solar spectrum move together as a result of any

1 bass2000.obspm.fr/solar_spect.php.
First Observations from MAST Page 9 of 25 106

Figure 6 Schematic of the spectrograph arrangement for simultaneous imaging of solar spectra and channel
spectrum. A part of the light is diverted to the spectrograph slit using pick-up mirrors (PM) before it passes
through the FPs. CL and IL are collimating and imaging lenses, respectively. FM is a flip mirror that can
divert the beam to the Littrow-spectrograph or to an imaging camera.

Figure 7 Example of one of the channel spectra for FP2 along with the solar spectrum in the same frame.
The upper panel shows both the solar spectrum and the channel spectrum, the lower panel shows the mean
profiles of the boxed regions.

thermal drift in the spectrograph, the solar spectral lines can be used dynamically as a ref-
erence while calibrating the etalons. Figure 8 shows such a spectral drift during the voltage
tuning run with one of the etalons. This is computed by plotting the mean of the line-center
positions of a few spectral lines taken over a period of 30 minutes. This plot demonstrates
the need to conduct simultaneous measurement of the channel spectrum and the unfiltered
solar spectrum.
106 Page 10 of 25 S.K. Mathew et al.

Figure 8 Spectral shift [mÅ]

due to the temperature
fluctuations in the spectrograph.
Taking the spectrum along with
the FP channels allows us to
remove the effect of this spectral
shift from the actual channel shift
measurements.

3.1. Voltage Tuning of the FPs

The voltage tuneability is measured by changing the voltage across the etalon and measuring
the wavelength shift of the transmission peak. In order to reconstruct the solar spectral lines
precisely from a sequence of images, it is important to tune the etalons to different locations
on the line profile. It is also equally important to know the exact wavelength location of
the peak of the transmission profile on the line profile. This can be done by calibrating
the voltage tuneability of the etalons after placing them in front of the spectrograph. By
recording the channel spectra, which are the transmission pass-bands resulting when the
filter is placed in front of the spectrograph (see Figure 7), we can derive parameters such as
FSR and FWHM.

3.1.1. FP1: FWHM and FSR at 6173 Å

Channel spectra were recorded after positioning the spectrograph at 6173 Å and placing the
FP1 in front of the spectrograph in the collimated beam, at the same place where it is placed
for imaging observations. The 11 Å spectral coverage provides three transmission channels
for the measurement. Figure 9 (left) shows profiles of two channels and the derived mean
FSR along with the probable error. The right plot shows the measured FWHM. The mean
values for the FSR and FWHM for this etalon obtained at 6173 Å are 3.393 Å and 135 mÅ,
respectively. The actual FWHM is lower than the above value as the observed profile is
convolved with the spectrograph instrumental profile. It is also noted that the value quoted
for the FWHM here is lower than that reported in the earlier article (Bayanna et al., 2014);
this is mainly due to the improvement in spectrograph resolution.

3.1.2. FP1: Voltage Tuneability at 6173 Å

The voltage tuneability of the etalon is measured by recording the channel spectrum as a
function of voltage changes. As the etalon tuning in fine steps takes a long time to complete,
it was important to have the reference solar spectra along with the FP channels. For each
voltage step, five spectral images were captured, and the mean profile was calculated for the
channel shift measurements. Two channels from the spectra were used for the shift mea-
surements with voltage. Any shift produced due to the thermal drift of the spectrograph was
taken out by using the reference spectral lines. Figure 10 shows the voltage-tuning rate of the
etalon obtained from these measurements. The open circles show the separate measurements
from two channels corrected for the spectrograph thermal drift, and the solid line is the fit
to the mean shifts. A mean voltage-tuning rate of 0.368 mÅ V−1 is obtained from this mea-
surement for the FP1 at a wavelength of 6173 Å. The half-FSR (1.696 Å) voltage required
First Observations from MAST Page 11 of 25 106

Figure 9 Segment of spectrum showing FSR (left) and FWHM (right) obtained from the measurement for
the FP1 at a wavelength of 6173 Å.

Figure 10 Mean voltage

tuneability of FP1 for the Fe I
line at 6173 Å. The open red and
green circles are separate
wavelength-shift measurements
from two channels, and the solid
line is the fit to the mean shifts.

for the FP1 is around 4610 Volts, which is more than the maximum recommended voltage
that can be applied to the etalon. This makes it difficult to use the FP etalon as a universal
filter; an optimization by varying the operating temperature was required to appropriately
cover the spectral lines of interest (discussed in Section 3.2).

3.1.3. FP2: FWHM and FSR at 6173 Å

Since the thickness of FP2 (1.556 µm) is greater than that of FP1, its FWHM and FSR
are lower than those of FP1. Etalon 2 produced around nine channels in 11 Å of spectral
range at 6173 Å (the channel spectrum shown in the top panel in Figure 7 is through the
FP2). Figure 11 shows the measured profiles indicating the FSR (left) and FWHM (right)
for the FP2. An average value of the FSR and FWHM of 1.333 Å and 96 mÅ, respectively,
is measured for this etalon. Seven channels from the spectra were included to compute the
mean measurement.
The FWHM of FP2 mainly determines the pass-band of the narrow-band imager. The
obtained value of 96 mÅ (Figure 11) is slightly higher than what is quoted by CSIRO during
the acceptance tests. The FWHM computed for FP2 during the acceptance test was about
70 mÅ. In order to accurately obtain the pass-band, a correction was required for the broad-
ening of the filter profile that is due to the finite width of the spectrograph slit. We attempted
106 Page 12 of 25 S.K. Mathew et al.

Figure 11 Segment of spectrum showing FSR (left) and FWHM (right) obtained from the measurements
for FP2 at 6173 Å wavelength.

Figure 12 An example of the

deconvolution performed to
obtain the correct value of
FWHM. The spectrograph
instrumental profile is used to
deconvolve the measured channel
spectra.

a deconvolution of the observed filter profile with the spectrograph instrumental profile. The
instrumental profile was computed using a crude method of convolving the BASS2000 Fe I
6173 Å line profile with a Gaussian profile with an assumed width, and fitting it with the
observed line profile from our spectrograph (Figure 12). The assumed Gaussian that pro-
vided the best fit was taken as the instrumental profile, which was then used to deconvolve
the channel spectrum. After the deconvolution of the observed channel spectrum, we deter-
mined a value of ≈ 76 mÅ for the FWHM for FP2, which is close to the value quoted by
CSIRO.

3.1.4. FP2: Voltage Tuneability at 6173 Å

Figure 13 shows the mean voltage tuneability of the FP2. Here, again the mean shifts from all
of the seven channels were used for the measurement. With the larger thickness, the voltage-
tuning rate reduces to a mean value of 0.15 mÅ V−1 . The computed half-FSR voltage here
is 4440 Volts. For the same material (lithium-niobate), the half-FSR voltage should be the
same for both the FP1 and FP2. The difference in the half-FSR voltages might be due to
the slightly different values of the r13 -coefficient of the particular lithium-niobate wafer
First Observations from MAST Page 13 of 25 106

Figure 13 Mean voltage

tuneability of FP2 for the Fe I
line at 6173 Å. Open circles with
different colors are separate
wavelength-shift measurements
from seven channels, and the
solid line is the fit to the mean
shifts.

Figure 14 Measurement of the FWHM and the FSR near the Ca II 8542 Å line for FP1.

used for making the etalons or due to the change in this coefficient for different operating
temperatures. The quoted values in the literature for this coefficient also vary considerably.

3.1.5. Voltage Tuneability, FSR, and FWHM of FP1 at 8452 Å

Another important solar spectral line that we plan to observe is the Ca II 8542 Å line that
is formed in the chromosphere. Since this is a broad line, the spectral resolution provided
by the FP1 alone is sufficient to make observations in this line. In Figure 14 we present the
FSR (left) and FWHM (right) measured for FP1 at the 8542 Å line, the values of which are
7 Å and 170 mÅ, respectively. The voltage tuneability of the etalon is shown in Figure 15;
the measured mean value is around 0.46 mÅ V−1 . The half-FSR voltage at this wavelength
is 7600 V, which is almost twice the maximum value that can be applied to the etalon. With
± 3000 Volts, we can only cover 1.38 Å on both sides of the Ca II spectral line from the
center.

3.1.6. Tuning the FPs to the Hα 6563 Å Line

Since we plan to use the imager mainly to exploit the Fe I 6173 Å and Ca II 8542 Å lines,
the temperature optimization is made only for the above two lines. To make observations in
106 Page 14 of 25 S.K. Mathew et al.

Figure 15 The voltage

tuneability of FP1 at the Ca II
8542Å line. Open circles are the
measured wavelength shifts, and
the solid line is the linear fit to
the shifts. Here the shift is shown
only for voltages up to ± 2.5 kV.

the Hα 6563 Å line, we decided to tilt the etalon to tune the wavelength. Tilting the etalon
with respect to the optical beam can result in a wavelength shift of the transmission peak,
but it can also produce a broadening of the transmission profile. Tilting the z-cut lithium-
niobate etalon can produce two nearby transmission channels corresponding to two different
refractive indices, while these channels are linearly polarized in orthogonal directions. In
y-cut etalons, this property was proposed to be used for optical polarization chopping in
coronal intensity measurements (Bonaccini and Smart, 1988). The Hα observation presented
in this article was obtained by tilt-tuning the etalons; both etalons were tilted with respect to
the optical axis to bring the transmission channels on the line center. For the FP1 the tilt was
quite large and thus produced the double channels, whereas the second etalon needed only a
voltage tuning to get the pass band on the line center. By this combination, we were able to
obtain the effective pass-band of the etalon close to 130 mÅ. In future observations, we plan
to use voltage tuning of both etalons for the Hα line scan limited to a few spectral points on
the line profile, which could allow us to obtain the Dopplergrams. The polarization effect of
the tilt in the observations will also be studied.

3.2. Operating-Temperature Optimization for FPs

In this section we discuss the operating-temperature optimization for the FP etalons. As

evident from the discussion in previous sections, it is not possible to scan the whole spectral
line with voltage alone. We carried out a temperature tuning of the etalons to determine
the optimum operating temperature for the etalons after taking the following factors into
account:
i) In tandem configuration, i.e. by combining the FP1 and FP2, it should be possible to
cover the entire Fe I line at 6173 Å, including some continuum.
ii) For the same temperature, with FP1 alone, the Ca II 8542 Å line should be equally
covered on both sides of the line center.
Considering the above factors, the optimum temperature was determined by taking several
measurements using the spectrograph while maintaining the etalons at different tempera-
tures. For each temperature, the etalon was tuned up to the maximum applicable voltage.
The tuning was first made for the Fe I line at 6173 Å. The spectral line profile was retrieved
by plotting the maximum intensity of the channel close to the line for all of the applied
First Observations from MAST Page 15 of 25 106

Figure 16 Fe I 6173 Å voltage

tuning at three different
temperatures for FP1. The 35 ◦ C
temperature is selected for FP1,
so that it provides a tuning range
that covers around 1.35 Å and
0.85 Å in the blue and red wings,
respectively.

Figure 17 Fe I 6173 Å voltage

tuning at three different
temperatures for FP2. The 28 ◦ C
temperature is selected for the
FP2, so that it provides a tuning
range that covers around 300 mÅ
and 600 mÅ in the blue and red
wings, respectively.

voltages. Figure 16 shows the retrieved line profile of the Fe I line at 6173 Å for the FP1
at 30 ◦ C and 35 ◦ C. The 35 ◦ C operating temperature was selected for the FP1, taking the
wavelength coverage of Ca II line also into consideration.
Similarly, Figure 17 shows the temperature dependence of the tuneability for the FP2
for 28 ◦ C, 30 ◦ C, and 35 ◦ C. Fixing the temperature for FP2 is crucial, as the voltage-tuning
constant for this etalon is lower than for FP1. The 28 ◦ C operating temperature was selected
for the etalon, which provides a coverage of continuum intensity on both the sides from the
line center. It is possible to bring the etalon temperature further down to move the line-center
voltage closer to zero (as this etalon is used only for measurement at Fe I line at 6173 Å).
We restrict operation to this temperature as the ambient temperature could rise much above
the set value of 22 ± 1 ◦ C in the case of any problem with the air-conditioning system in the
observing room.

3.2.1. Line-Center Voltages for FPs

After setting the etalons at the respective operating temperatures, we derived the voltages
required for tuning the etalons to the spectral line center, while simultaneously ensuring that
the spectrograph slit was illuminated with the solar-disk-center intensity. This was done to
avoid the spectral line shift produced by the solar rotation, which is zero at the disk center.
Figure 18 shows such a measurement for FP2 at an operating temperature of 28 ◦ C, when
the spectrograph was illuminated by the light from the limb and from the disk center. This
106 Page 16 of 25 S.K. Mathew et al.

Figure 18 Fe I 6173 Å voltage

tuning at three different locations
on the Sun. The evident shift in
the line center is produced by the
solar rotation.

Figure 19 Fe I 6173 Å line

profile tuning with the FP1 and
FP2 in tandem. Voltage
corresponding to each
wavelength position is applied to
the etalons to obtain the line
profile.

line shift can introduce considerable error during the calibrations if it not taken into account.
The derived line-center voltages for the FP1 and FP2 at 6173 Å are +700 Volts and −1000
Volts, respectively.

3.2.2. Tuning the FPs in Tandem at Fe I 6173 Å

After fixing the temperature of the etalons and obtaining the temperature tuning rate and the
line-center voltages, it was possible to tune the etalons in tandem across the line profile. This
was done by calculating the voltage required for both etalons for each required wavelength
position on the line profile. Figure 19 shows the Fe I line profile retrieved from the peak
intensity of the combined channel tuned across the line profile. Here a 15 mÅ wavelength
step was used for the measurements. The scale in the x-axis was obtained from converting
step voltages into wavelengths. By combining and tuning the etalons in tandem, we obtained
an FSR of around 6.5 Å and a measured FWHM of around 85 mÅ.
First Observations from MAST Page 17 of 25 106

Figure 20 Optical layout of the narrow-band imager. Light from the telescope enters the set-up from M6,
through L1, folded by two mirrors M1 and M2. L2 and L3 relay the beam to the collimating lens L4. L4
re-images the pupil plane between the two FP etalons, FP1 and FP2. The re-imaging lens L5 produces the
image on the CCD. In a new set-up (shown in the shaded box), only one of the FPs (FP1) is used to image in
the Ca II 8542 Å line. The dichroic beam splitter (DBS) diverts the beam around this wavelength to sCMOS
through the lens L6, enabling us to obtain the images at 6173 Å and 8542 Å at the same time.

4. Narrow-Band Imager Set-up and Preliminary Observations

After characterizing the etalons and pre-filters, the same optical configuration was used for
the imaging. The pick-up mirrors used to divert the solar light to the spectrograph were
removed from the optical path, and the light was directed straight to the detector through
the etalons and the blocking filter. Figure 20 shows the optical configuration (excluding
the components shown in the shaded box) used for the solar observations presented in this
article. The collimated beam from the telescope is imaged to an intermediate focal position
using a 2250 mm focal length doublet. This produces a ≈ 22 mm image corresponding to a
3 arcmin FOV. This image is relayed to another collimating lens (L4) with a focal length of
500 mm using two lenses L2 (350 mm) and L3 (100 mm). The FP etalons are kept in this
beam, where the image of the pupil plane forms in between the etalons. The beam size is
more than 50 mm on the FP etalons, allowing the effective use of more than 80% of the full
aperture of the etalons. We have also considered the option of using a telecentric beam for
the etalons. A discussion of using telecentric and collimated beams is given by Kentischer
et al. (1998). We have selected a collimated beam for placing the etalons since the FOV-
dependent wavelength shift in our case is very small for 3 arcmin, and it is smaller than
10 mÅ at the extreme corners. In addition, the number of optical components required for
the collimated set-up and the influence of dust on the windows are both smaller in the case
of a collimated configuration.
The wheel on which the three blocking interference filters are mounted is placed in the
converging beam after the re-imaging lens and close to the CCD camera. This is done to
avoid any kind of image degradation, as the blocking filters are not designed for the re-
quired transmitted wave-front error. Placing the interference filter in the collimated beam
(where almost the full aperture of the filter is illuminated) produced a visible degradation
in the image. By keeping it close to the CCD, only a small portion of the filter is used, and
the f18 beam is also large enough not to produce any considerable broadening of the block-
ing filter pass-band. Any of these filters can be brought into the beam depending upon the
observational requirement. The insertion of the filter is integrated with the computer soft-
ware used for the image acquisition. A doublet (L5) with 750 mm focal length produces the
106 Page 18 of 25 S.K. Mathew et al.

image on a CCD camera. The CCD camera is mounted on a motorized linear stage. Focus
adjustment for different wavelengths is made by moving the camera automatically. The CCD
camera is a SensiCam QE, 1376 × 1040 pixels with 6.45 µm pixel size, from pco.imaging.
A plate scale of ≈ 0.134 arcsec pixel−1 is achieved with this configuration, which is close
to twice the diffraction limit of the telescope. A polarimeter package can also be inserted
between lens L5 and the camera for magnetic-field measurements. The details of the MAST
polarimeter are presented in a separate article (Tiwary et al., 2017).
In the above optical configuration, observations at different wavelengths can be made
only in sequence as the blocking filter needs to be changed for each wavelength. A new op-
tical configuration is shown in the shaded box in Figure 20 for simultaneous measurement
at two spectral lines with a wide separation in wavelength. In this scheme, a dichroic beam
splitter (DBS, obtained from Light Machinery, Canada) placed after the FP1 is used to divert
the higher wavelength part of the beam to another detector through the respective blocking
filter. The dichroic beam splitter is designed with 90% transmission at 6173 Å (>88% be-
tween 5000 Å and 6600 Å) and 95% reflectivity at 8542 Å (>85 % between 7500 Å and
10000 Å). Moreover, the wave front for the reflected and transmitted beam for the dichroic
splitter is better than λ/12, thus preserving the image quality in the output beam. We plan to
use the reflected beam after the FP1 for the Ca II line at 8542 Å in this configuration. Here
the voltages for the FP1 need to be optimized for a proper line tuning in both these wave-
lengths. We have tested this configuration with a new 2k × 2k sCMOS camera (Zyla 4.2
from Andor). Since the detector size in sCMOS is larger than in SensiCam, the re-imaging
lens (L6) has a focal length (1000 mm) that is different from the focal length in the 6173
Å arm. The initial test results are promising, and with this set-up, it will be possible to take
both the photospheric and chromospheric images simultaneously.
A complete software suite and a graphical user interface (GUI) is written in C++ and
interactive data language (IDL) for the synchronization and data acquisition. The informa-
tion regarding the line-center voltages for the etalons for different wavelengths and voltage-
tuning rates are used to tune the etalons in tandem. The voltages required to bring the etalon
to the desired spectral position are calculated from the above parameters. The tuning speed
of the etalon is limited by the software to a maximum of 1500 V s−1 . The image acquisition
with the detectors is synchronized with the voltage tuning of the etalons. The parameters
such as wavelength for observations, wavelength interval, and number of images can be ad-
justed in the GUI. In the following sections we present and describe examples of images
taken with the MAST imager.

4.1. Images in Fe I Line at 6173 Å

We carried out several observational runs for the Fe I line at 6173 Å by tuning the etalons in
tandem. The 2.5 Å blocking filter centered at 6173 Å was inserted along with the etalons into
the light path to obtain these observations. The Fe I line can be scanned for any wavelength
interval depending upon the science requirement. The new set temperatures for the etalons
allowed us to scan the line from 6173.05 Å to 6173.9 Å by applying varying voltages,
covering the continuum in both blue- and red-wavelength sides.
The top panel in Figure 21 shows a few selected images from one of the line scans. These
images were taken on 19 December 2015, and the sunspot seen in the image is a part of Ac-
tive Region NOAA12470. The seeing was moderate during the period of observation. The
line scan was carried out with a 15 mÅ spectral step and the images were taken with an
exposure time of 30 ms. Five images were acquired for frame selection for each wavelength
step. The appearance of small-scale magnetic features as bright patches is very evident in
First Observations from MAST Page 19 of 25 106

Figure 21 Spectral scan images for Fe I 6173 Å line. The images shown in the top panel are for selected
wavelength points represented by the filled circles on the line profile shown in the bottom panel. The line scan
is made with a step size of 15 mÅ.

the images when the line scan moved from continuum to the line center. The retrieved mean
line profile from the above observations is shown in the bottom panel in Figure 21, and filled
circles show the wavelength locations of the corresponding images in the upper panel. The
line profile was obtained by computing the mean intensity from each image. The sunspot
and small bright magnetic regions seen in the line-center image were excluded while cal-
culating the intensities. A comparison of the line profile with the BASS2000 spectrum is
also shown in the plot with the dashed line. As evident, the line depth is reduced because
of the finite width of the narrow-band imager pass band. While using the observed spectral
profile in inversion, we plan to carry out a convolution of the synthetic profiles with the
filter profile before fitting the observed line profile. This could be done by a computed FP
profile of equivalent pass-band, or with the transmission channel profile measured with the
spectrograph.
106 Page 20 of 25 S.K. Mathew et al.

Figure 22 Typical Fe I 6173 Å line-center images from one of the scans of Active Region NOAA12524,
taken on 24 March 2016. Optimization of the exposure time is still needed to reduce the random noise.

The left panel of Figure 22 shows another image obtained for a different sunspot observed
on 24 March 2016. This sunspot is part of Active Region NOAA12524. The image was
taken when the sunspot was at around 30◦ to the west on the solar disk. The image was
taken with the filter tuned to the line center. The compact bright regions corresponding to
small magnetic features are very clearly visible in this image. The effect of the seeing is also
evident as some patches in the FOV are more blurred than the other sharper regions. The
right panel in Figure 22 shows a line continuum image of the quiet Sun taken through the
narrow-band filter. Here the images were taken by tuning the filter in the blue continuum.
With varying seeing patches across the 3 arcmin FOV, the intergranular lanes are still visible
in the image. Both images were taken during moderate seeing conditions.

4.2. Images in the Ca II Line at 8542 Å

As mentioned earlier, the FWHM of the chromospheric Ca II line at 8542 Å is around 2 Å.

This makes it difficult to scan the entire line, as the voltage applicable to the etalons is limited
to ± 3000 V. Again, as the line is much broader than the Fe I 6173 Å line, we decided to
use only one etalon with the broader pass-band to scan the line profile. We used the thinner
etalon (226 µm). The measured FWHM of this etalon is around 170 mÅ at 8542 Å. This
single etalon provides enough coverage of the line, even though it is not possible to scan
the line entirely from the blue to red continuum. The line-scan images were acquired after
removing the second etalon from the optical path and introducing the Ca II blocking filter
of about 3 Å pass band, and centered at 8542 Å. The focal plane shift was compensated
for by moving the CCD with the motorized linear stage. Figure 23a – c shows three selected
images from one of the scans, Figure 23a in the blue wing, Figure 23b in the line center, and
Figure 23c in the red wing. Figure 23d is the line-center image for a region near the disk
center. The FOV of the image is similar as for Fe I line, i.e., around 3 arcmin. We attempted
to find the smallest structure we can resolve in these images. Checking the cuts across the
images, we could find structures that come close to the diffraction limit of the telescope at
this wavelength, especially in the line-center images. For polarimetric observations in this
line, a narrow pass-band is required (de la Cruz Rodriguez et al., 2013). We are keeping the
option of combining the two etalons for the Ca II line for the polarimetric imaging.
Figure 24 shows the profile of Ca II 8542 Å spectral line retrieved from the line-scan
images. Here the scanning was made with a wavelength step of around 23 mÅ covering
First Observations from MAST Page 21 of 25 106

Figure 23 Ca II 8542 blue-wing (a) line-center, (b) red-wing, (c) images, through the FP1 and the pre-filter
of Active Region NOAA12536, taken on 29 April 2016. (d) A line-center quiet-Sun image taken from the
flat-field set.

around 1.15 Å on both the sides of the line center. As mentioned earlier, the scan is limited
to only the central portion of the Ca II line because of the limitation in the scan voltage.
The plotted profile is normalized with respect to the maximum observed intensity and does
not show the full line profile. In order to achieve the continuum intensity for normalization,
a measurement in the continuum is required; we plan to do this with a different blocking
filter of known transmission, centered on the nearby continuum and allowing one of the
etalon channels to pass through. The exact knowledge of the transmission of both blocking
filters at the above wavelength (in the absence of the spectral line) is required to derive the
proper normalization.

4.3. Images in the Hα Line at 6563 Å

Figure 25 shows one of the images taken in Hα. The image is taken on 13 April 2016, and
the sunspot is a part of Active Region NOAA12529 (the location was around N09 W00 on
the solar disk). The smallest spatial features (≈ 0.4 arcsec) visible in the image are close
to the diffraction limit of the telescope. Here, both etalons were used in tandem for the
imaging. Since the voltage and temperature tuning of the etalons are optimized for the Fe I
106 Page 22 of 25 S.K. Mathew et al.

Figure 24 Ca II 8542 Å line

profile produced from tuning the
filter. The images were acquired
for each voltage step; the
wavelength was obtained from
the voltage tuneability curve.

Figure 25 Hα line-center image

of Active Region NOAA12529,
taken on 13 April 2016, obtained
by voltage and tilt tuning of both
the FPs.

and Ca II lines, the Hα line center needed a tilt tuning for the etalons. The tilt tuning enables
the channels of both of the etalons to coincide with the Hα line center. We did not attempt
the entire line tuning for this line. At present, the etalons are mounted on a rotating stage
that needs to be adjusted manually for the tilt tuning. We plan to mount the etalons on a
high-precision motorized USB-driven rotating stage (such as the one from Newport, SR50).
In this case, we will be able to introduce the Hα blocking filter in the 6173 Å optical arm,
which will enable us to obtain at least quasi-simultaneous observations at the Hα line center
along with the Fe I line.

4.4. Stokes V Measurement in the Fe I 6173 Å Line

A major scientific program for the narrow-band imager is to measure solar magnetic fields.
For this purpose, a Stokes polarimeter is integrated along with the imager. The details of
First Observations from MAST Page 23 of 25 106

Figure 26 One example for the magnetic-field measurement carried out in the Fe I 6173 Å line. The mea-
surement was carried out on 24 October 2015, on AR NOAA12436. The left image shows one of the Stokes-I
images taken in the line continuum, and the right image is for Stokes-V around 30 mÅ from the line center.

the polarimeter are presented in a separate article (Tiwary et al., 2017). Two liquid-crystal
variable retarders and a linear polarizer are used for the Stokes-profile measurements. Fig-
ure 26 shows an example from one such measurements. The left panel shows the image in
the continuum, and the right panel shows the Stokes-V signal at a wavelength position of
30 mÅ away from the Fe I 6173 Å line center. A set of 20 images for each circular polar-
ization was acquired alternatively with an exposure time of 30 ms to obtain the Stokes-V
profile. A background granulation pattern is clearly visible in the Stokes-V image, which is
produced by the seeing effect (due to the I→V cross-talk) during the image acquisition. We
will be able to reduce the seeing effect, at least for a small FOV (around 15 – 20 arcsec) when
our adaptive-optics system becomes operational. We also need to analyze the instrumental
polarization before we can use these images to derive the magnetic field.

5. Future Upgrades
As mentioned in Section 4, for simultaneous observations in the Fe I and Ca II lines, an opti-
cal set-up shown in Figure 20 is already in place. The Ca II blocking filter will be separated
from the filter wheel and will be placed in a stand-alone oven. For the Fe I line it would
be possible to use a blocking filter with a slightly broader pass-band to avoid the reduced
transmission in the wings of the line. A blocking filter with a 4 Å band-pass and a rectan-
gular transmission profile is preferred for this purpose (similar to dense wavelength division
multiplexing (DWDM) filters that are used in optical communication). The rectangular pro-
file will reduce the contamination of the intensity from the side bands; we are exploring the
possibility of obtaining this type of filter. This type of filter will also be considered for the
Ca II and Hα imaging. For the Hα imaging, as mentioned earlier, the FP etalons will be
mounted on a computer-controlled rotating stage for the quasi-simultaneous observations.
An IDL widget program is being prepared for the entire control of the narrow-band imager,
including the image acquisition and obtaining the telescope information.

6. Conclusion
The 50 cm Multi Application Solar Telescope (MAST) started operations at the Udaipur So-
lar Observatory in June 2015. During good seeing conditions, the telescope provides almost
106 Page 24 of 25 S.K. Mathew et al.

Table 1 MAST narrow-band imager Fabry–Perot etalon parameters

Thickness FWHM FSR Finesse Vol. tuneability

[µm] [Å] [Å] [FSR/FWHM] [mÅ V−1 ]

λ = 6173 Å
FP1 226 0.133 3.38 25 0.386
FP2 577 0.095 1.33 14 0.150
Combined – 0.085 6.50 76 –

λ = 8542 Å
FP1 226 0.170 7.00 41 0.460

diffraction-limited snapshot images, thereby vouching for the image quality of the entire
optical system. A narrow-band imager that is capable of taking images in photospheric and
chromospheric spectral lines is integrated with the telescope. The imager consists of two FP
etalons and a set of blocking interference filters. The etalons are made of lithium-niobate
crystals, which can be tuned by applying voltage. Some of the important Fabry–Perot etalon
parameters are listed in Table 1. Spectral tuning of all of the components was carried out
using a Littrow spectrograph of 18 mÅ spectral resolution. The spectral tuning range of
the etalons is limited by the maximum voltage (± 3000 V) that could be safely applied to
the etalons. As the half-FSR voltages for both the etalons are above 3000 Volts, tuning the
etalons to cover all of the spectral line profiles at different wavelength was not feasible. Our
primary goal was to obtain the data at the photospheric Fe I 6173 Å and chromospheric
Ca II 8542 Å lines. Even though we were able to entirely cover the Fe I line, the maxi-
mum voltage applicable to the etalons limits the tuneability over the entire Ca II line-profile
scanning. Moreover, the broad Ca II 8542 Å line could be sampled with lower spectral reso-
lution, which in fact requires only one of the FPs, with the thinner crystal, which had a wider
FWHM (≈ 170 mÅ) and larger FSR. With the existing imager, we can scan the entire line
profile of the Fe I 6713 Å line, part of the Ca II 8542 Å line, and the center of the Hα 6563
Å line (with tilt tuning). We presented and described several images obtained by tuning the
filters across the line profile and also discussed the future upgrades. The observed images
show a similar quality as obtained with our G-band and Hα filters, which proved the useful-
ness of these filters for high-resolution observations. We plan to carry out observations with
the imager in the next observing season for scientific studies.
Acknowledgements We acknowledge the contribution of the MAST team members for the successful
installation of the telescope. In addition to the authors, the MAST core team members include N. Srivastava,
B. Kumar, N. Jain, M. Sardava, and R. Koshy. We also thank Mukesh Saradava, who designed and fabricated
the mechanical components required for the FP oven, filter wheel, etc. and the late Sudhir Kumar Gupta, who
did the electronic assembly for the high-voltage power supply and temperature controllers. We would also
like to thank the MAST telescope provider (AMOS team lead by Stefan Denis and the Telescope Control
System OSL team lead by Chris Mayer) and the CSIRO team, who provided the lithium-niobate etalons. We
express our sincere thanks to the referee for carefully reading the manuscript, suggestions, comments, and
language corrections.

Disclosure of Potential Conflicts of Interest The authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest.

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