A CCD‐based guiding and control system for solar telescopes

We describe a system for guiding and control of motion of solar telescopes based on a determination of the position of the full solar disk on a CCD chip. The system computes the position of the disk center and, according to the difference between the instantaneous and required positions, it controls the motion of the telescope to compensate the deviation. The instantaneous position of the disk center is the basic input for the telescope's guiding and coordinate system. Brightness inhomogeneities of the solar limb caused by clouds are checked in real time. The function of the system can be suspended automatically if the clouds degrade the accuracy of guiding. The system also makes possible to check the correct focus and to evaluate the image quality.