Prime focus coma corrector for the MMT with off-the-shelf components

Maud P. Langlois; James Roger P. Angel; Michael Lloyd-Hart

doi:10.1117/12.395417

16 August 2000 Prime focus coma corrector for the MMT with off-the-shelf components

Maud P. Langlois, James Roger P. Angel, Michael Lloyd-Hart

Proceedings Volume 4008, Optical and IR Telescope Instrumentation and Detectors; (2000) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.395417
Event: Astronomical Telescopes and Instrumentation, 2000, Munich, Germany

Abstract

A small prime focus corrector for the new 6.5 m MMT telescope has been built using small off-the-shelf optical components. Its purpose is to aid in initial test of the primary mirror. At f/1.25 the paraboloidal primary is by far the fastest of any large telescope, and without correction the field and the plate scale are both inconveniently small. The corrector design is based on the Maksutov camera, with a concave spherical relay mirror and a refractive meniscus corrector to subtract the coma introduced by the primary mirror and balance out the spherical aberration from the relay mirror. The result is a 48 arcsec field at f/7 with 80 percent encircled energy within 0.25 arcsec diameter. The instrument includes a CCD with 500 by 500 20 micron pixels, a guide camera and provision for a fast wavefront sensor to measure mirror figure and atmospheric turbulence. The instrument was tested at the telescope before implementation of the active control of mirror support forces or the mirror air conditioning system. Nevertheless images with FWHM 0.53 arcsec were recorded.

Citation Download Citation

Maud P. Langlois, James Roger P. Angel, and Michael Lloyd-Hart "Prime focus coma corrector for the MMT with off-the-shelf components", Proc. SPIE 4008, Optical and IR Telescope Instrumentation and Detectors, (16 August 2000); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.395417

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