Design and development of the Advanced Technology Solar Telescope

Led by the National Solar Observatory, plans have been made to design and to develop the Advanced Technology Solar Telescope (ATST). The ATST will be a 4‐m general‐purpose solar telescope equipped with adaptive optics and versatile post‐focus instrumentation. Its main aim will be to achieve an angular resolution of 0.03 arcsec (20 km on the solar surface). The project and the telescope design are briefly described.