The Mauna Loa Solar Observatory (MLSO) occupies part of the NOAA Mauna Loa research site located on the flank of Mauna Loa at an elevation of 3440 meters on the island of

Mk II Coronal Activity Monitor Instrument

Solar Energetic Particle Alerts from a Coronagraph

In this NASA-led study, we report the concept of using near-real time observations from a coronagraph to provide early warning of a fast coronal mass ejection (CME) and the possible onset of a sola

A handy, scalable web display of recent solar movies and helpful information

The Sun Today is a single-page website dedicated to displaying the most recent movies from MLSO and other solar instruments.

Solar Maximum Mission Information and Data on the MLSO website

The Solar Maximum Mission (SMM) satellite was launched in 1980 aboard a NASA Delta rocket.

Data & Observations

MLSO Home Page

On Monday, November 11, 2019, Mercury will transit the Sun for the first time since 2016. Weather permitting, MLSO will again be observing the transit with our K-Cor coronagraph. Be sure to come back and see the data! Shown at left is a movie from the 2016 transit as observed by K-Cor. Look for the small silhouette of the planet moving though the corona. Also, visit our 2012 Venus transit page for more transit movies.

K-Cor L1 data is being replaced by fully calibrated L1.5 data.
Units and data type have changed. *MORE INFO*

CoMP has been removed from the MLSO spar. Upgraded CoMP (UCoMP) will be deployed to MLSO at the end of 2019, and will provide improved total intensity, linear polarization, magnetic azimuth, and Doppler observations over a wide range of wavelengths from 530nm to 1083nm.