The NSF Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope (DKIST) will enter an extended engineering period lasting from mid-November 2024 to late February 2025. This period will allow NSO/DKIST technical staff to make efficient use of the winter period on Haleakala, Maui, HI, which is frequently less suitable for science observing, to perform critical engineering maintenance and new upgrades to the DKIST facility and its instrumentation.
One of the most highly anticipated of these upgrades will be the continued installation and initial on-Sun site testing of the single-etalon version of the Visible Tunable Filter (VTF) instrument, an in-kind contribution from the Institute for Solar Physics (KIS) in Freiburg, Germany. The second etalon for the VTF is currently being assembled at KIS and is expected to arrive mid-2025. Science verification and commissioning of the dual-etalon VTF is expected to begin late 2025 and will continue throughout 2026. Following the extended engineering campaign, DKIST will begin Cycle 3 science observations.