Abstract
Steward Observatory is building a deformable f/15 secondary mirror that will compensate for atmospheric turbulence for the 6.5 m Multiple Mirror Telescope conversion. With the proposed adaptive optics system, this new telescope is expected to resolve diffraction limited images (greater than 80% Strehl ratio at 2.2 μm), approximately an order of magnitude better than present seeing. This improved visibility with a larger light collecting area and low thermal background requires a new science instrument, diffraction limited for the 1 to 5 μm region. This science instrument, presently in its early manufacturing stages, consists of four cameras (optimized for plate scales from 0.019 arcsec/pixel to 0.102 arcsec/pixel), low resolution spectroscopy with grisms (λ/Δλ from 250 to 500), high resolution spectroscopy with a cross-dispersed Echelle grating (λ/Δλ from 3,000 to 60,000) and an atmospheric dispersion corrector. The cameras will provide simultaneous slit viewing, differential imaging and two pixel sampling over the full wavelength band. Each camera will operate with a 1024×1024 HgCdTe array optimized for the spectral region of the camera. An infrared tip/tilt sensor is also incorporated into the instrument that will relay natural guide star motion to the adaptive secondary in a closed-loop approach. This paper is an optical design instrument overview.
| Original language | English (US) |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 274-283 |
| Number of pages | 10 |
| Journal | Proceedings of SPIE - The International Society for Optical Engineering |
| Volume | 3779 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - 1999 |
| Event | Proceedings of the 1999 Current Developments in Optical Design and Optical Engineering VIII - Denver, CO, USA Duration: Jul 19 1999 → Jul 21 1999 |
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Electronic, Optical and Magnetic Materials
- Condensed Matter Physics
- Computer Science Applications
- Applied Mathematics
- Electrical and Electronic Engineering