The concept design of the Discovery Channel Telescope mount

David S. Porter; Thomas A. Sebring; Byron Smith; David Finley; Fred Baine; Kerstan G. Hermann

doi:10.1117/12.552343

28 September 2004 The concept design of the Discovery Channel Telescope mount

David S. Porter, Thomas A. Sebring, Byron Smith, David Finley, Fred Baine, Kerstan G. Hermann

Proceedings Volume 5489, Ground-based Telescopes; (2004) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.552343
Event: SPIE Astronomical Telescopes + Instrumentation, 2004, Glasgow, United Kingdom

Abstract

The 4.2 m Discovery Channel Telescope requirements create interesting challenges for the Mount mechanical and control system design. The wide field of view survey telescope incorporates two operational foci: prime focus and cassegrain, either one must be available during any night's observing. The mission for observing requires fast slewing / offsets between each exposure with fast settling times to maintain the mission requirements. The prime focus arrangement includes a dedicated camera on the spider assembly and the cassegrain configuration includes a secondary mirror at the spider assembly with a dedicated instrument located at the cassegrain focus. This requirement challenges the design team to incorporate a prime focus / secondary mirror flipping mechanism within the secondary spider. The configuration requires a substantial prime focus and cassegrain payload with long focal distances creating a large inertia on the altitude axis. These are a few of the interesting challenges that are presented in this paper along with the design, trade-offs of different solutions, and the recommended design for the telescope Mount.

Citation Download Citation

David S. Porter, Thomas A. Sebring, Byron Smith, David Finley, Fred Baine, and Kerstan G. Hermann "The concept design of the Discovery Channel Telescope mount", Proc. SPIE 5489, Ground-based Telescopes, (28 September 2004); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.552343

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