Wilcox Solar Observatory

{{Short description|Stanford University solar telescope}}

{{Infobox telescope | locmapin=California}}

The Wilcox Solar Observatory (WSO) is a solar observatory in Stanford, California that is used to produce daily observations of the magnetic and velocity field at the Sun's surface.{{cite web |title=WSO - The Wilcox Solar Observatory |url=http://wso.stanford.edu/ |website=wso.stanford.edu |access-date=18 December 2022}} It began daily observations of the Sun's mean magnetic field in May 1975. Formerly known as the Stanford Solar Observatory, it is operated by Stanford University and is located {{convert|2|km|mi|sp=us}} south of the Stanford University campus. It would later be named after solar physicist John M. Wilcox. WSO has historically been funded by NASA Heliophysics, the National Science Foundation, and the Office of Naval Research.{{cite web |title=Wilcox Solar Observatory - John M. Wilcox |url=http://wso.stanford.edu/images/people/wilcox.html |website=wso.stanford.edu |access-date=18 December 2022}}{{cite journal |last1=Hoeksema |first1=J. Todd |last2=Scherrer |first2=Philip H. |title=An atlas of photospheric magnetic field observations and computed coronal magnetic fields: 1976–1985 |journal=Solar Physics |date=May 1986 |volume=105 |issue=1 |pages=205–211 |doi=10.1007/BF00156388 |bibcode=1986SoPh..105..205H |s2cid=120235347 |url=https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/BF00156388|url-access=subscription }}[https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2001JA009195 Solar mean magnetic field variability: A wavelet approach to Wilcox Solar Observatory and SOHO/Michelson Doppler Imager observations][https://articles.adsabs.harvard.edu//full/1986BAAS...18..621./0000622.000.html 1986BAAS...18..621. Observatory Reports: Wilcox Solar Observatory (Stanford Univ.)] Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society (1986), 18, p.621

WSO uses a Littrow spectrograph together with a Babcock magnetograph on the

5250 Å iron-1 spectral line, which it compares to the close by and magnetically insensitive iron-1 line at 5124 Å, to estimate the line-of-sight photospheric magnetic field to within 0.04 gauss.[https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/access/metadata/landing-page/bin/iso?id=gov.noaa.ngdc.stp.solar_imagery:Chromosphere_Magnetogram_Wilcox Magnetogram Chromosphere Observed from Wilcox Observatory]