A seeing measurement device for the PoET solar telescope

Fuente: arXiv
Guardado en:
Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Wehbe, Bachar, Silva, André, Abreu, Manuel, Cabral, Alexandre, Santos, Nuno, Sütterlin, Pit
Formato: Preprint
Publicado: 2026
Materias:
Acceso en línea:
Etiquetas: Agregar Etiqueta
Sin Etiquetas, Sea el primero en etiquetar este registro!
_version_ 1866915932258959360
author Wehbe, Bachar
Silva, André
Abreu, Manuel
Cabral, Alexandre
Santos, Nuno
Sütterlin, Pit
author_facet Wehbe, Bachar
Silva, André
Abreu, Manuel
Cabral, Alexandre
Santos, Nuno
Sütterlin, Pit
contents Atmospheric seeing arises from stochastic fluctuations in the refractive index of the Earth's atmosphere, producing random variations in the apparent direction of incoming light from astronomical sources. Scintillation refers to the associated intensity fluctuations induced by these refractive index inhomogeneities. A quantitative relationship between seeing and scintillation was established in 1993, enabling daytime seeing measurements by exploiting the Sun as an extended, bright source and using non-telescopic instrumentation. PoET, the Paranal solar ESPRESSO Telescope, will feed the Echelle SPectrograph for Rocky Exoplanets and Stable Spectroscopic Observations, ESPRESSO, at the European Southern Observatory (ESO) Very Large Telescope (VLT). By using the Sun as a proxy for solar-type stars, PoET will facilitate detailed investigations of the physical processes that drive stellar noise in ultra-high-precision radial-velocity measurements for exoplanet studies. The instrument is capable of targeting any region on the solar disk and acquiring spatially resolved spectra over areas ranging from 1 to 55 arcseconds. Accurate characterization of daytime atmospheric seeing is therefore essential for selecting the optimal observing aperture and ensuring the scientific performance of PoET. To support this requirement, we have developed and implemented a dedicated solar seeing monitor for daytime deployment at Paranal, Chile, where PoET will operate. In this work, we describe the instrument design and present the results from commissioning and initial on-sky validation.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2604_10140
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle A seeing measurement device for the PoET solar telescope
Wehbe, Bachar
Silva, André
Abreu, Manuel
Cabral, Alexandre
Santos, Nuno
Sütterlin, Pit
Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics
Earth and Planetary Astrophysics
Atmospheric seeing arises from stochastic fluctuations in the refractive index of the Earth's atmosphere, producing random variations in the apparent direction of incoming light from astronomical sources. Scintillation refers to the associated intensity fluctuations induced by these refractive index inhomogeneities. A quantitative relationship between seeing and scintillation was established in 1993, enabling daytime seeing measurements by exploiting the Sun as an extended, bright source and using non-telescopic instrumentation. PoET, the Paranal solar ESPRESSO Telescope, will feed the Echelle SPectrograph for Rocky Exoplanets and Stable Spectroscopic Observations, ESPRESSO, at the European Southern Observatory (ESO) Very Large Telescope (VLT). By using the Sun as a proxy for solar-type stars, PoET will facilitate detailed investigations of the physical processes that drive stellar noise in ultra-high-precision radial-velocity measurements for exoplanet studies. The instrument is capable of targeting any region on the solar disk and acquiring spatially resolved spectra over areas ranging from 1 to 55 arcseconds. Accurate characterization of daytime atmospheric seeing is therefore essential for selecting the optimal observing aperture and ensuring the scientific performance of PoET. To support this requirement, we have developed and implemented a dedicated solar seeing monitor for daytime deployment at Paranal, Chile, where PoET will operate. In this work, we describe the instrument design and present the results from commissioning and initial on-sky validation.
title A seeing measurement device for the PoET solar telescope
topic Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics
Earth and Planetary Astrophysics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2604.10140