Extremely large telescope: a twenty-five meter aperture for the twenty-first century

Frank N. Bash, Thomas A. Sebring, Frank B. Ray, Lawrence W. Ramsey

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contribution

11 Scopus citations

Abstract

The 10-meter class Hobby-Eberly telescope (HET), now nearing completion, provides technology for optical Arecibo-type telescopes which can be extrapolated to even larger apertures. Utilizing a fixed elevation angle and a spherical segmented primary mirror provides cost effective and pragmatic solutions to mirror mounting and fabrication. Arecibo-type tracking implies a greatly reduced tracking mass and no change to the gravity vector for the primary mirror. Such a telescope can address 70 percent of the available sky and exhibit optical quality easily sufficient for effective spectroscopy and photometry. The extremely large telescope takes advantage of several key engineering approaches demonstrated by the HET project to achieve a cost comparable to similarly-sized radio rather than optical telescopes. These engineering approaches include: bolted pre-manufactured primary mirror truss, factory manufactured geodesic enclosure dome, air bearing rotation of primary mirror, tracker, and dome systems directly on concrete piers, and tracking via a hexapod system. Current estimates put the cost of the ELT at $200 million for a 25-meter aperture utilizing a 33-meter primary mirror array. Construction of the ELT would provide the astronomy community with an optical telescope nearly an order of magnitude larger than even the largest telescopes in operation or under construction today.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Title of host publicationProceedings of SPIE - The International Society for Optical Engineering
PublisherSociety of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers
Pages576-584
Number of pages9
ISBN (Print)0819422681
StatePublished - 1997
EventOptical Telescopes of Today and Tomorrow - Landskrona/Hven, Swed
Duration: May 29 1996May 29 1996

Publication series

NameProceedings of SPIE - The International Society for Optical Engineering
Volume2871
ISSN (Print)0277-786X

Other

OtherOptical Telescopes of Today and Tomorrow
CityLandskrona/Hven, Swed
Period5/29/965/29/96

All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes

  • Electronic, Optical and Magnetic Materials
  • Condensed Matter Physics
  • Computer Science Applications
  • Applied Mathematics
  • Electrical and Electronic Engineering

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