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V.L. Krabbendam (NOAO), J.H. Burge (U. Arizona), C.F. Claver (NOAO), B. Cuerden, W. Davison (U. Arizona), W.J. Gressler (NOAO), J. Kingsley, H.M. Martin (U. Arizona), D.R. Neill (NOAO), S. Olivier, D. Phillion (LLNL), J. Sebag (NOAO), D. Sweeney (LSST Corp), LSST Collaboration
The proposed Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST) has an 8.4 meter aperture with a 3.5 degree diameter field of view and must meet the challenging cadence requirements necessary to perform the LSST survey mission. Several advances have been made in the concept design of the telescope. The telescope optical system is based on a Paul-Baker three element design with a single captured focus for the dedicated instrument. The large mirrors, 8.4 m diameter primary, 3.4 m secondary, and 5.0 m tertiary feeding a 3 element refractive corrector produces a large 65 cm diameter focal plane. These elements are supported by a rigid steel structure with active alignment mechanisms on each element for position maintenance and correction. The optical design has been optimized and the primary and tertiary mirror surfaces are now specified to be fabricated into a single monolithic mirror blank. Additional analysis has been done to analyze wavefront information needed within the focal plane to control the optical figures of the three powered reflective surfaces and their alignments. An active rigid body alignment system concept has been developed using laser tracker technology to reduce the computation load on wavefront sensing. The LSST telescope development continues in concert with the parallel development of all aspects of the entire LSST Project.
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Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, 37 #4
© 2005. The American Astronomical Soceity.