Abstract　 　　 

　The 1.6-m New Solar Telescope (NST) has been used to observe the Sun for more than three years with ever increasing capabilities as its commissioning phase winds down. The NST is the first facility-class solar telescope built in the U.S. in a generation, and it has an off-axis design as is planned for the 4 m Advanced Technology Solar Telescope. Lessons learned will be discussed. Current NST post-focus instrumentation includes adaptive optics (AO) feeding photometric and near-IR polarimetric sytems, as well as an imaging spectrograph. On-going instrumentation projects will be sketched, including Multi-Conjugate AO (MCAO), next generation (dual Fabry- P ́erot) visible light and near-IR polarimeters and a fully cryogenic spectrograph. Finally, recent observational results illustrating the high resolution capabilities of the NST will be shown.

Prof. Philip R. Goode received his AB from the University of California at Berkeley in 1964 and his PhD from Rutgers University in 1969. He is a Fellow of the American Physical Society and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. As the director of Big Bear Solar Observatory (BBSO), Goode led the project to build the world’s most capable solar telescope at BBSO.  The new solar telescope (NST) is a 1.6 meter clear aperture, off-axis telescope featuring the world’s largest solar aperture telescope.  First light was achieved in January 2009, and was followed by first scientific observations over the summer of 2009. Goode has years of experience studying the Sun’s atmospheric magnetic fields.  He is an expert at combining BBSO ground-based data with satellite data to determine dynamic properties of the solar magnetic fields.  Such studies bear greatly on scientists’ understanding and ability to predict “space weather.”  Goode’s other areas of interest include working to place a lower limit on solar irradiance and to probe the solar interior (called helioseismology), as well as determining the Earth’s large-scale reflectance by measuring earthshine.