The Multi Application Solar Telescope

Multi Application Solar Telescope (MAST), a telescope for the detailed study of solar activity, was operationalized at the Udaipur Solar Observatory (USO) of Physical Research Laboratory (PRL), on 16 June 2015. This article traces the history of the conceptualization to realization of MAST and describes its salient features. MAST is an off-axis Gregorian-Coudé telescope with a 50 cm aperture. The first light backend instruments include a narrow band polarimetric imager to map the photospheric and chromospheric magnetic fields and a multi-slit spectro-polarimeter. An adaptive optics system is also being developed for the on-line corrections of the image distortions produced by atmospheric seeing. The main objective of MAST is to obtain high spatial and temporal resolution observations of solar photospheric and chromospheric activity, with the ultimate goal of predicting space weather.