The technology is already suitable for primary active mirrors, with some improvements on some subsystems.Ī GSTP activity is proposed to optimize some elements, to reduce the areal density, to increase the TRL and possibly to prove the concept with more than one petal. The big, 4.5 inch-aperture telescope tube amazes everyone by its clear images: the 4.5-inch aperture and 450mm focal length help to show brighter images of the celestial objects. Lightweight active mirror breadboard successfully passed the planned environmental tests. The telescope comes with a 127mm aperture and is competitively priced, meaning you can view our solar system and deep-sky targets without breaking. This reflector telescope is mounted on a dobsonian-type structure, with alluminum alloy truss tubes connecting the primary and the secondary mirror cells.

It was subjected to a qualification campaign, including optical, thermo-vacuum, thermal cycling and vibration tests. As the focal ratio gets bigger, the telescope needs more exposure time in. The largest single radio telescope in the world is the Five-hundred-metre Aperture Spherical Telescope (FAST), located in a natural depression in Guizhou. the Optical BB) its areal density is around 17 kg/m2 and the power dissipation is ~55 mW/actuator. tens of planetary and diffuse nebulae and all Messier objects brightest objects from NGC some details are resolved on the brightest and largest objects. The Simons Observatory is a ground-based cosmic microwave background experiment that consists of three 0.4 m small-aperture telescopes and one 6 m Large. The ratio of the focal length f to the aperture D of a telescope is defined as.

The mechanical support is an ultra-low mass CFRP + Aluminum honeycomb structure, housing the actuators and the electronics and providing the electrostatic locking capability for the shell during launch.Ī 40-cm diameter, spherical F/6 demonstration prototype with 19 actuators was assembled (i.e. The core of the LATT approach is a 1-mm thick Zerodur glass shell with 5-m radius of curvature as the optical surface, actively shaped by contactless fail-safe voice-coil actuators, controlled in close loop by an internal metrology fed by capacitive position sensors along their stroke (+/-500μm). LATT breadboard: Thin Zerodur Mirror on the backplane

Big aperture telescopes