Mauna Loa Solar Observatory in Hawaii (Image courtesy of the GONG Project, National Solar Observatory [funded by the National Science Foundation])
MLSO Analysis Facility in Boulder, CO (Image courtesy of the High Altitude Observatory, National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), Boulder, Colorado, USA. NCAR is sponsored by the National Science Foundation)
Observatory Contributions
Provide information on the Sun's corona
Study the physical processes operating on the sun and their variability.
How Will It Do This?
Acquires daily images of the Sun's corona in scattered white-light by artificially blocking out the disk of the Sun with a device called a coronameter.
Observations are made of disappearing prominences, coronal mass ejections and other time varying structures in the Sun's corona.
One of the sites in the Global Oscillation Network Group (GONG) set up to observe the oscillations of the Sun using helioseismology.
Observatory Description
Located on the lava fields of Mauna Loa on the island of Hawaii at an elevation of 3353 meters.
Observations at this facility began in June 1995.
The observatory is administered by the High Altitude Observatory of the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado.
