Solar Diameter Monitor: an instrument to measure long-term changes

Analyses of historical data suggest that the solar diameter may vary with time with an amplitude of a few tenths of a second of arc. The High Altitude Observatory has constructed a special purpose telescope, the Solar Diameter Monitor, designed to detect any such changes. The telescope is an f/50 transit instrument with an aperture of 10 cm and is almost completely automated to avoid observer bias. Each day at solar noon, it measures the sun's horizontal diameter by timing the solar disk transit time and the vertical diameter by comparing the image size to that of a stable length standard. Preliminary estimates suggest that these observations will allow a test of the solar diameter's constancy at the 1-sec of arc/century level in an observing time of 3-5 years.