Progress in the Measurement of Solar Magnetic Fields

Abstract

AbstractThe historical development of optical instruments for solar physics is outlined, from white light to unpolarized and polarized monochromatic light, to Stokes profiles and simultaneous fields of view, from points to lines, plane to cube. An evolutionary series and classificaton of instruments for the solar magnetic field is described. As a next step the 2-D real time polarizing spectrograph has been proposed. The planned instruments in China for measurements of solar magnetic and velocity fields are briefly introduced.