The Solar Optical Telescope (SOT) is a diffraction-limited, visible light telescope that provides the unparalleled combination of uninterrupted temporal coverage (free from atmospheric seeing, weather, and nighttime), high cadence (as short as 1.6s), and 0.2″ spatial resolution over a significant 328″×164″ field of view (FOV). SOT is comprised of the Focal Plane Package (FPP), which is fed by the 0.5-meter Optical Telescope Assembly (OTA). The FPP consists of the Spectro-Polarimeter (SP) and (up to 2016) the Narrowband and Broadband Filter Imagers (NFI and BFI) that comprise the FilterGraph (FG). The combined SOT system allows measurements of the vector magnetic field in the photosphere with unprecedented sensitivity (10× better than previous instrumentation), while simultaneously observing the effects of these fields on the dynamics of both the photosphere and chromosphere.