An active telescope secondary mirror control system

Details An active telescope secondary mirror control system An active telescope secondary mirror control system

Jun 1999

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=1999rsci...70.2856b&link_type=abstract

Review of Scientific Instruments, Volume 70, Issue 6, pp. 2856-2860 (1999).

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astronomy

1

Ground-Based Ultraviolet, Optical And Infrared Telescopes, Mathematical Procedures And Computer Techniques, Control Systems, Optical System Design, Lenses, Prisms And Mirrors

Scientific paper

One of the main constraints for a modern astronomical telescope is the active control of the secondary mirror, mainly for the correction of the decentering coma and defocus induced by thermomechanical distortions. The mirror movements should be smooth, as precise as the optical design requires, and restricted to within predefined limits. It should be possible to perform mirror alignment and focus corrections without pausing the exposure (online control). The Galileo telescope achieves all this by using a support structure driven via six actuator bars (a hexapod system or Stewart platform) and a real-time control system based on a transputer network that allows parallel control of each actuator. Both the hexapod secondary support and the control system have been built and tested at the telescope. The results show that the errors introduced during mirror positioning lead to optical aberrations well below the diffraction figure of the telescope, and the systems work smoothly enough to allow online control.

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