Advanced Multiple Aperture Seeing Profiler

Measurements of the seeing profile of the atmospheric turbulence as a function of altitude are crucial for solar astronomical site characterization, as well as the optimized design and performance estimation of solar Multi-Conjugate Adaptive Optics (MCAO). Knowledge of the seeing distribution, up to 30 km, with a potential new solar observation site, is required for future solar MCAO developments. Current optical seeing profile measurement techniques are limited by the need to use a large facility solar telescope for such seeing profile measurements, which is a serious limitation on characterizing a siteʼs seeing conditions in terms of the seeing profile. Based on our previous work, we propose a compact solar seeing profiler called the Advanced Multiple Aperture Seeing Profile (A-MASP). A-MASP consists of two small telescopes, each with a 100 mm aperture. The two small telescopes can be installed on a commercial computerized tripod to track solar granule structures for seeing profile measurement. A-MASP is extreme simple and portable, which makes it an ideal system to bring to a potential new site for seeing profile measurements.