A 30-m Cassegrain telescope with spherical optics and a 3-deg. field

James H. Burge; James Roger P. Angel

doi:10.1117/12.459959

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30 January 2003 A 30 meter Cassegrain telescope with spherical optics and a 3-deg. field

James H. Burge, James Roger P. Angel

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Proceedings Volume 4840, Future Giant Telescopes; (2003) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.459959
Event: Astronomical Telescopes and Instrumentation, 2002, Waikoloa, Hawai'i, United States

Abstract

We present a concept is for a fully steerable, quasi-Cassegrain telescope in which the 36 m pri-mary and secondary mirrors are parts of concentric spheres. The 15-m secondary, supported 36 meters above the primary yields a 3°, Cassegrain focal surface, 7 meters in diameter. Though the spherical aberration is large (about 2 arcminutes), many small fields are fully cor-rected locally. Multiple small units are placed in the focal surface at regions of interest to cor-rect a field of view of a few arcseconds. These can be used for integral field spectroscopy of for direct imaging using adaptive optics. Hundreds of these units could be placed on the focal surface during the day to allow all-night exposures of the desired regions. We believe that this design offers an economical system that can be dedicated for several important types of astronomical observation.

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James H. Burge and James Roger P. Angel "A 30 meter Cassegrain telescope with spherical optics and a 3-deg. field", Proc. SPIE 4840, Future Giant Telescopes, (30 January 2003); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.459959

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