Now submitted to ESA via their “Open Space Innovation Platform”. Submission on https://ideas.esa.int/servlet/hype/IMT?documentId=5fa8610451aa9702ba2fed88f2a8d40a&userAction=Browse&templateName=
Not sure if you can see that without a login, if not then just ignore it.

Sunshield blackening using mit-scientists-accidentally-create-the-blackest-material-ever Yes you have seen this before.

How can we see galaxies, transients, and other faint objects within 50 deg of the Sun?

Full pdf file on https://tokyo3.org/forums/holiday/topics/12070/

Blind Spot Space Telescope. A space telescope to complement PanStarrs and LSST by viewing where they cannot – near the Sun.

Astronomy has an enormous blind spot when observing transient events – we can’t see these because of daylight. In November, the Sun in Sagittarius hides about ¾ of all stars in the Milky Way. Space telescopes are no improvement, Keck can see closer to the Sun than Hubble. SOHO can’t see further than 8.5 degrees from the Sun.

We need a telescope to observe transient events between 5 and 60 degrees from the Sun, 10,000 sq°, to work in concert with Pan-STARRS and LSST.

Transient events include gamma ray bursters, supernovae, supernova imposters, galactic jets, quasar brightness, flare stars, binary star eclipses, starspots, novae, irregular variable stars, semi-regular variable stars, gravitational lensing by Machos, comets, near-Earth asteroids, and other inner-solar system asteroids, arrivals of asteroids and comets from outside the solar system, as well as the solar corona itself. It would be an enormous shame if we missed these because they were too near the Sun to view.

Nice

dv said:

Nice

Next step would be getting a firm value (with range) for the space telescope diameter. For that, i need to find or derive the equation that connects stellar magnitude to space telescope diameter and observing time.

mollwollfumble said:

dv said:

Nice

Next step would be getting a firm value (with range) for the space telescope diameter. For that, i need to find or derive the equation that connects stellar magnitude to space telescope diameter and observing time.

And an equation for the brightness of the outer solar corona a function of the distance from the Sun. And wavelength.

Why not have a space telescope on the opposite side of the sun orbit in relation to Earths position ?

Tau.Neutrino said:

Why not have a space telescope on the opposite side of the sun orbit in relation to Earths position ?

I’m including the four Sun-Earth Lagrangian points as options. They may end up being best.

That one has two disadvantages – cost and time to get the spacecraft there, it costs a lot less to put a spacecraft in low Earth Orbit.

The other disadvantage is that it wouldn’t see asteroids and comets between there and here. This is a major aim of the project.

On a more positive note, it would avoid the problem of interference from zodiacal light, the light scattered off dust grains within the solar system. I’m just reading https://aas.aanda.org/articles/aas/full/1998/01/ds1449/node8.html (table 16) and the interference from zodiacal light at 15 degrees from the Sun is about 100 times as large as at best viewing position. Which would argue in favour of Neutrino’s suggestion.