The solar corona during the eclipse of August 1, 2008

A new telescope has been created to investigate the solar corona during eclipses. One lens simultaneously forms three corona images occurring as coronal radiation passes through three polarizers with transmission directions rotated 0°, 60°, and 120° relative to the selected direction; in addition, one image is formed without the polarizer. The telescope was used for solar corona observation during the eclipse of August 1, 2008. We obtained the distributions of polarization brightness, K corona brightness, degree of K corona polarization, and total degree of polarization as well as polarization directions depending on the latitude and radius in the sky plane. Radial distributions of the electron density depending on latitude were calculated. The coronal plasma temperature was determined for different corona structures under the assumption of hydrostatic equilibrium.