LIST is the Lyman-α Imaging Solar Telescope, a project funded by the Korean government to fly on the second Korean Science and Technology research Satellite (STSat-2) due to launch in December 2005. The Principal Investigator is Dr. Minhwan Jang of Kyung-Hee University and of the Space Payload Research Center (SPARC), a consortium of Korean universities and institutions formed to develop scientific research projects in space. The purpose of the LIST project is to design, build, and operate an instrument on STSat-2 which will make images of the Sun from Earth orbit at the wavelength of the Hydrogen Lyman-a emission line at 121.6 nm. LIST has a simple design concept comprised of a small telescope to image the full disk of the Sun onto a CCD detector and a set of filters to isolate the 121.6 nm wavelength.
New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT), in collaboration with the University of Hawaii (UH), is upgrading Big Bear Solar Observatory (BBSO) by replacing its principal, 65 cm aperture telescope with a modern, off-axis 1.6 m clear aperture instrument from a 1.7 m blank. The new telescope offers a significant incremental improvement in ground-based infrared and high angular resolution capabilities, and enhances our continuing program to understand photospheric magneto-convection and chromospheric dynamics. These are the drivers for what is broadly called space weather - an important problem, which impacts human technologies and life on earth. This New Solar Telescope (NST) will use the existing BBSO pedestal, pier and observatory building, which will be modified to accept the larger open telescope structure. It will be operated together with our 10 inch (for larger field-of-view vector magnetograms, Ca II K and Ha observations) and Singer-Link (full disk Hα, Ca II K and white light) synoptic telescopes. The NST optical and software control design will be similar to the existing SOLARC (UH) and the planned Advanced Technology Solar Telescope (ATST) facility led by the National Solar Observatory (NSO) - all three are off-axis designs. The NST will be available to guest observers and will continue BBSO's open data policy. The polishing of the primary will be done in partnership with the University of Arizona Mirror Lab, where their proof-of-concept for figuring 8 m pieces of 20 m nighttime telescopes will be the NST's primary mirror. We plan for the NST's first light in late 2005. This new telescope will be the largest aperture solar telescope, and the largest aperture off-axis telescope, located in one of the best observing sites. It will enable new, cutting edge science. The scientific results will be extremely important to space weather and global climate change research.