MICA: The mirror coronagraph for Argentina

As part of the new German-Argentinian Solar Observatory in El Leoncito, San Juan, Argentina, a new ground-based solar telescope (MICA) began to operat e in August 1997. MICA is an advanced mirror coronagraph, its design being an almost exact copy of the LASCO-C1 instrument. Since its installation, it has been imaging the inner solar corona (1.05 to 2.0 solar radii) in two s pectral ranges corresponding to the emission lines of the Fe XIV and Fe X i ons. The instrument can image the corona as fast as every minute. Thus, it is ideally suited to study fast processes in the inner corona. In this way, it is a good complement for the LASCO-C1 instrument. After a brief review of the instrument, we present some recent observations showing the capabili ties of the instrument.