The active primary mirror assembly for the SOAR telescope

Computer Science – Performance

Scientific paper

Rate now

  [ 0.00 ] – not rated yet Voters 0   Comments 0

Details

1

Scientific paper

The details of the design and the achieved performance of the recently completed primary mirror assembly for the SOAR telescope are described in this paper. The mirror is unique in that it uses a solid 4.3 meter diameter ULE™ lightweight meniscus primary mirror only 100 mm thick. The ULE substrate weighs approximately 3200 kg. The figure of the primary mirror surface is controlled with 120 electro-mechanical actuators that are force feedback controlled. Details of the design of the 4.1 meter clear aperture F=1.75 active primary mirror are presented. The figure control actuators are force controlled to correct aberrations induced by thermal and elevation changes affecting the telescope. A Calibration Wavefront Sensor provides input data to generate lookup tables used to develop the force commands at all zenith angles and temperatures. During the design development phase of the program the mirror was analyzed using NASTRAN finite element modeling. During optical metrology testing the ability to accurately induce shapes into the mirror surface including Zernike polynomials was compared to the NASTRAN predictions. Details of the results of this testing will be presented including the magnitude of force to impose specific Zernike polynomial shapes and the fidelity of the resulting shapes compared to the analysis.

No associations

LandOfFree

Say what you really think

Search LandOfFree.com for scientists and scientific papers. Rate them and share your experience with other people.

Rating

The active primary mirror assembly for the SOAR telescope does not yet have a rating. At this time, there are no reviews or comments for this scientific paper.

If you have personal experience with The active primary mirror assembly for the SOAR telescope, we encourage you to share that experience with our LandOfFree.com community. Your opinion is very important and The active primary mirror assembly for the SOAR telescope will most certainly appreciate the feedback.

Rate now

     

Profile ID: LFWR-SCP-O-1808717

  Search
All data on this website is collected from public sources. Our data reflects the most accurate information available at the time of publication.