The Kiepenheuer Institute for Solar Physics (abbreviation: KIS; ) is a research institute

Research institute

A research institute is an establishment endowed for doing research. Research institutes may specialize in basic research or may be oriented to applied research...

 located in Freiburg

Freiburg

Freiburg im Breisgau is a city in Baden-Württemberg, Germany. In the extreme south-west of the country, it straddles the Dreisam river, at the foot of the Schlossberg. Historically, the city has acted as the hub of the Breisgau region on the western edge of the Black Forest in the Upper Rhine Plain...

, Germany

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

. Its research focuses on the exploration of the Sun

Sun

The Sun is the star at the center of the Solar System. It is almost perfectly spherical and consists of hot plasma interwoven with magnetic fields...

 and heliosphere

Heliosphere

The heliosphere is a bubble in space "blown" into the interstellar medium by the solar wind. Although electrically neutral atoms from interstellar volume can penetrate this bubble, virtually all of the material in the heliosphere emanates from the Sun itself...

. The institute has one solar telescope

Solar telescope

A solar telescope is a special purpose telescope used to observe the Sun. Solar telescopes usually detect light with wavelengths in, or not far outside, the visible spectrum.-Professional solar telescopes:...

 on the Schauinsland

Schauinsland

The Schauinsland , is a mountain in the Black Forest with an elevation of 1,284 m above sea level....

 Mountain near Freiburg and, in collaboration with other institutions, uses solar telescopes of the Teide Observatory

Teide Observatory

The Observatorio del Teide is an astronomical observatory on Tenerife operated by the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias. Opened in 1964, it became one of the first major international observatories, attracting telescopes from different countries around the world because of the good astronomical...

 in Tenerife

Tenerife

Tenerife is the largest and most populous island of the seven Canary Islands, it is also the most populated island of Spain, with a land area of 2,034.38 km² and 906,854 inhabitants, 43% of the total population of the Canary Islands. About five million tourists visit Tenerife each year, the...

, Spain

Spain

Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...

.

History

The Institute was founded in 1943 as the 'Fraunhofer Institute' by Karl-Otto Kiepenheuer

Karl-Otto Kiepenheuer

Karl-Otto Kiepenheuer was a German astronomer and astrophysicist. His research focused on the Sun, and for that purpose he initiated construction of several solar telescopes and founded the Kiepenheuer Institute for Solar Physics.-Life and work:Kiepenheuer was born in 1910 in Weimar, Germany, as a...

. Kiepeheuer was director of the Institute from 1943 until his death in 1975. The Institute was renamed as the 'Kiepenheuer Institute for Solar Physics' to honour the founder of the Institute and to enable the Fraunhofer Society

Fraunhofer Society

The Fraunhofer Society is a German research organization with 60 institutes spread throughout Germany, each focusing on different fields of applied science . It employs around 18,000, mainly scientists and engineers, with an annual research budget of about €1.65 billion...

 to call their own institutes (the first of which was founded in 1954), 'Fraunhofer Institutes'. Both Institutions had been named independently after the physicist Joseph von Fraunhofer, and they had no other connection besides the name.

Outposts

The solar observatory at the island of Capri, Italy was founded in 1954. The Coudé refractor became operational in 1966, and from that time the solar telescope on the Schauinsland continued to be used only for testing equipment. For several years, the Capri observatory with its domeless telescope provided observation time to the institute.

In the early 1970s, the Institute searched for a suitable place to establish a European solar observatory, and Karl-Otto Kiepenheuer took an active part in this search. Finally the Spanish island of Tenerife was chosen, due its dry weather and stable atmosphere. In 1989, the Vacuum Tower Telescope

Vacuum Tower Telescope

For the vacuum tower telescope at Sacramento Peak, see Richard B. Dunn Solar Telescope.The Vacuum Tower Telescope is an evacuated-optics solar telescope located at the Teide Observatory on Tenerife in the Canary Islands. It is operated by the Kiepenheuer-Institut für Sonnenphysik ..It has a ...

became operational, and with a 70-cm mirror and adaptive optics it is one of the The outpost in Capri was closed down after the solar observatory at the Teide Observatory became operational.

External links

• Kiepenheuer Institute for Solar Physics