The Hinode Spectro-Polarimeter
Kubo, M.; Lites, B. W.; Ichimoto, K.; Elmore, D. F.; Tsuneta, S.; Katsukawa, Y.; Shimizu, T.; Tarbell, T. D.; Shine, R. A.; Title, A. M.; Hoffmann, C.; Katz, N.; Duncan, D. W.; Card, G.; Streander, K. V.; Cruz, T.; Akin, D. L.; Edwards, C. G.; Suematsu, A.
United States, Japan
Abstract
The joint Japan/US/UK Hinode mission includes the first large-aperture visible-light solar telescope flown in space. One component of the Focal Plane Package of that telescope is a precision spectro-polarimeter designed to measure full Stokes spectra with the intent of using those spectra to infer the magnetic-field vector at high precision in the solar photosphere. This article describes the characteristics of the flight hardware of the HinodeSpectro-Polarimeter, and summarizes its in-flight performance.