CHAIN-Project Home Page

The Flare Monitoring Telescope (FMT) was constructed in 1992 at Hida Observatory in Japan to investigate the long-term variation of solar activity and explosive events. It has five solar imaging telescopes that simultaneously observe the full-disk Sun at different wavelengths around H-alpha absorption line or in different modes. Therefore, the FMT can measure the three-dimensional velocity field of moving structures on the full solar disk.
	The science target of the FMT is to monitor solar flares and erupting filaments continuously all over the solar disk and to investigate the correlation between the characteristics of the erupting phenomena and the geoeffectiveness of the corresponding CMEs.
We have started up a worldwide project called as "Continuous H-alpha Imaging Network (CHAIN)-project". This project is being pushed by a new international space weather project in Japan entitled "Basic Study of Space Weather Predictions ^()" under the CAWSES-CAWSESII program, and it is also an important IHY-ISWI project of our observatories. As part of this project, we are examining the possibility of installing telescopes similar to the FMT in foreign countries. We have selected Peru as the country where the 1st oversea FMT will be installed. We will send the FMT to Ica Univ. in Peru in 2009. Moreover, we are examining installation of the 2nd oversea FMT in Algeria, so that we can continuously observe solar active phenomena for 24 hours. We are aiming to start the operation of them before the maximum phase of the solar cycle 24. () Grant-in-Aid for Creative Scientific Research of the Ministry of Education Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT): 17GS0208, PI: K. Shibata

Kwasan Observatory 17 Ohmine-cho Kita Kazan, Yamashina-ku, Kyoto City, Kyoto, 607-8471 Tel:+81-75-581-1235 FAX:+81-75-593-9617	Hida Observatory Kurabashira, Kamitakara-cho, City of Takayama, Gifu, 506-1314 Tel:+81-578-6-2311 FAX:+81-578-6-2118
Observatory's office of affairs Oiwake-cho Kita-shirakawa, Sakyo-ku, Kyoto City, Kyoto 606-8502 4th floor in the #4 Build. of faculty of Science Tel:+81-75-753-3893 FAX:+81-75-753-4280	Webmaster: webmaster(at)kwasan.kyoto-u.ac.jp Copyright 2005, Kwasan and Hida Observatories, Graduate School of Science, Kyoto University. All rights reserved.

(*) Grant-in-Aid for Creative Scientific Research of the Ministry of Education Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT): 17GS0208, PI: K. Shibata