THEMIS Solar Telescope

The “Télescope Héliographique pour l’Étude du Magnétisme et des Instabilités Solaires” (THEMIS) of CNRS-INSU is a 1-meter-class optical solar telescope, primarily dedicated to studying solar magnetism and the dynamical processes within the Sun’s atmosphere (such as sunspots and solar flares). THEMIS can also perform observation of near-Sun objects such as Mercury and comets.

THEMIS is located at the Teide Observatory of IAC, with a base office in La Laguna, in Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain.

New: Schedule of 2025 observing campaign

Click for information on:     How to reach THEMIS locations   ;   How to contact the THEMIS team

Overview of telescope status


THEMIS from VTT webcam


Webcam of THEMIS Dome


Latest EUMETSAT RGB image


THEMIS weather page


Last image from
THEMIS full Sun guider


The THEMIS telescope and its science

Observing with THEMIS

THEMIS Scientific research & results

THEMIS image of the month: May 2025

Hourly dynamics of Sodium emission on Mercury May was Mercury Month a theMis!
This past month of May took place the usual annual observation campaign of Mercury, led by researchers from the Italian National Institute of Astrophysics (INAF/IAPS in Rome) in collaboration with scientist from the French Laboratoire Atmosphères, Observations Spatiales (LATMOS/CNRS-UVSQ-SU-CNES in Paris).

In a sequence of scans of the exosphere of Mercury obtained some years ago, THEMIS could follow the hourly evolution of the reconstructed distribution of the Sodium emission. The figure displays the intensity emission (in kiloRayleigh) after preliminary reduction, including bias and sky background subtraction, as well as spectral and flux calibrations. Solid white line highlights the disk of the planet, the cross indicating the center of the disk. Mercury disk is 6.0'' wide. The Sun is located on the left.

The images show the two peaks of higher intensity at high hermian latitude in the direction of the Sun. These peaks of sodium emission are roughly co-spatial with the positions of the magnetic footprints. Their evolution is due to the link of such emission with the Mercury magnetosphere and the interaction with the varying solar wind particles penetrating the magnetosphere and flowing to the surface. Adapted from Mangano et al. 2013.

Past images of the month

THEMIS telescope management

themis.txt · Last modified: 2025/06/03 15:43 by etienne
Recent changes RSS feed Debian Powered by PHP Valid XHTML 1.0 Valid CSS Driven by DokuWiki