Observational Technological Innovations and Future Development of the Lijiang Coronagraph
arXiv:2605.24498 · doi:10.3390/instruments10020021
Abstract
As a core ground-based coronal observation facility in China's low-latitude high-altitude regions, the Lijiang Coronagraph leverages the natural advantages of Lijiang Astronomical Observation Station, including its 3200 m altitude and low atmospheric turbulence. It has undergone a full development process, from introduction via Chinese-Japanese cooperation to independent innovation and iteration. This paper systematically summarizes its core technological innovations: upgrade of the automatic operating system, integration of the dual-band observation system, stray light suppression based on image differencing before and after cleaning, and high-precision image calibration and registration. These advances have significantly improved observation efficiency and data quality, laying a solid foundation for high-quality observations. Scientifically, the data reveal that 1.1 solar radii is a highly correlated region between coronal green line brightness and magnetic field intensity. The study also confirms a strong correlation between the coronal green line and the SDO/AIA 21.1 nm extreme ultraviolet band (correlation coefficient: 0.89-0.99), supporting early warning research on Coronal Mass Ejections (CMEs). These results provide key data for verifying coronal heating mechanisms and exploring the origin of the slow solar wind. The experience from the Lijiang Coronagraph not only lays a foundation for China's next-generation large-aperture coronagraphs, but also accelerates progress in low coronal observation capabilities, enabling the country to build internationally competitive capabilities in this field. The system is also an important part of the global coronal observation network.
15 pages, 10 figures, 1 table, Published in Instruments 10, 21 (2026)
References in corpus (8)
- A global view of velocity fluctuations in the corona below 1.3 with CoMP
- Observations of Coronal Mass Ejections with the Coronal Multichannel Polarimeter
- Observing the evolution of the Sun's global coronal magnetic field over eight months
- The Balloon-borne Investigation of Temperature and Speed of Electrons in the corona (BITSE): Mission Description and Preliminary Results
- The Structure of Coronal Mass Ejections Recorded by the K-Coronagraph at Mauna Loa Solar Observatory
- Site-testing at the Muztagh-ata Site.V. Nighttime Cloud Amount during the Last Five Years
- Solar coronal magnetic field measurements using spectral lines available in Hinode/EIS observations: Strong and weak field techniques and temperature diagnostics
- Mapping ground-based coronagraphic images to Helioprojective-Cartesian coordinate system by image registration