The New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT) has been operating Big Bear Solar Observatory (BBSO) since July 1, 1997. The current three-year NSF grant started on March 1, 2001, and this grant provides primary, backbone support for BBSO. BBSO telescope time and data are available to all. The observatory has produced over 100 scientific papers under the first two years of this NSF support. At present, the PI is building and implementing a high-order adaptive optics system for BBSO, and he has begun to build a new 1.6-m clear aperture, off-axis telescope for BBSO.
This proposed three-year program of solar physics research at BBSO would cover the decaying phase of solar cycle 23. The program would emphasize sustained campaigns of high resolution and high cadence studies of magnetic fields and the solar atmosphere - efforts for which BBSO is ideally suited. BBSO staff also plans to engage in instrument development to better carry out the proposed high resolution and/or high cadence observations. The PI notes that the scientific work proposed can be done with the current BBSO instrumentation and telescope, but would yield more probing results with the new instrumentation and telescope. All on-going instrumentation projects would be completed before, or early in, the period covered by this proposal - except the 1.6 telescope project, which is not required for the science proposed here, because the new telescope would not be completed until late in the period of the proposed work.
