This special section of Optical Engineering is focused on ground-based telescopes and instrumentation. Several new ground-based facilities have started operations, and astronomical instrumentation has been developed from new and creative technologies. The papers that are contained in this special section include upgrades to existing telescopes/observatories to improve image quality. They also describe new accurate tracking control systems that are being deployed from small to large telescopes in multiple wavelengths.
New instrumentation is being developed, such as Fabry-Perot interferometers, solar spectrometers, and near-infrared Fizeau-type imaging interferometers. Several papers cover solar telescopes and instrumentation.
I would like to thank the authors and referees for their due diligence putting this special section together.
Biography
Helen J. Hall is the associate director for program management for the Stratospheric Observatory for Infra-red Astronomy (SOFIA) with the Universities Space Research Association (USRA) at NASA Ames. She is responsible for the line management and overall execution of the USRA project baseline for the past 5 years. She served in various manager capacities in support of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) Experimental Program and was later hired on with Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) as project director for line item construction projects. Helen holds a B.S. in mechanical engineering from the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC). She has performed as conference chair for the past two years for the SPIE Conference on Ground-based and Airborne Telescopes.
