Czech companies have the opportunity to participate in tenders for the development and construction of the European Solar Telescope (EST). Currently, three tenders are announced:

• for the design of the telescope, including the pillar and dome (Preliminary design of the telescope structure, pier and enclosure for the European Solar Telescope)
• Preliminary design of the primary mirror assembly for the European Solar Telescope
• on the design of an adaptive secondary mirror (Preliminary design of the adaptive secondary mirror for the European Solar Telescope)

Links to details of inquiries, including technical specifications and work progress, can be found at http://www.asu.cas.cz/est/pro-firmy. The EST project website in English is at http://www.est-east.eu.

The European Solar Telescope (EST) is a new generation solar telescope to be built in the Canary Islands. This telescope, with a primary mirror diameter of 4 meters, will focus on studying the magnetic interconnection of the lowest layers of the solar photosphere with the highest layers of the chromosphere. To achieve these goals, it will be necessary to measure the temperature, velocity and magnetic field in a plasma, the properties of which change rapidly with altitude in the solar atmosphere. This will be ensured by a number of instruments that will simultaneously observe the Sun at many wavelengths and make both image, spectroscopic and spectropolarimetric observations.

Contact:
Jiří Janošec, Technology Center of the ASCR, 234 006 136, e-mail: janosec@tc.cz