We Make ‘Em and Fly ‘Em – Three Decades of Telescopes for Observing the Sun at the Smithsonian
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National Air and Space Museum in Washington, DC
Free, Tickets Required
4:00-5:00 pm Discovery Station
5:15-6:45 pm Lecture and Q&A
6:30-8:30 pm Observatory Open
Thirty years ago, Smithsonian scientists and engineers began developing a new technique for coating mirrors to look at the Sun. The resulting telescopes have driven three decades of new discoveries. This year the Smithsonian, in partnership with the Marshall Space Flight Center, made an enormous new leap forward in our ability to study the Sun. Learn about the telescopes that have made this golden age of solar observation possible and the breathtaking results.
The Smithsonian’s Stars Lecture Series is made possible by a grant from NASA.
NASA's High Resolution Coronal Imager, or Hi-C, captured the highest-resolution images ever taken of the sun's corona in the extreme ultraviolet wavelength. The innovative telescope, launched on a sounding rocket at White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico July 11, 2012, focused on a large active region on the sun. The resulting images reveal the dynamic structure of the solar atmosphere in the finest detail ever seen.
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