The description of the Imaging Magnetograph eXperiment (IMaX) is presented in this contribution. This is a magnetograph which will fly by the end of 2006 on a stratospheric balloon, together with other instruments (to be described elsewhere). Especial emphasis is put on the scientific requirements to obtain diffraction-limited visible magnetograms, on the optical design and several constraining characteristics, such as the wavelength tuning or the crosstalk between the Stokes parameters.

10 pages, 9 figures.-- Published in: "Polarimetry in Astronomy", edited by Silvano Fineschi.-- Contributed to the conference with same title, Waikoloa, HI, USA, Aug 25, 2002.

Final full-text version available Open Access at: http://www.iaa.es/~jti/publications/SPIE.pdf

Peer reviewed