Paper
29 August 2016 Vibration measurements of the Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope mount, Coudé rotator, and enclosure assemblies
William R. McBride II, Daniel R McBride
Author Affiliations +
Abstract
The Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope (DKIST) will be the largest solar telescope in the world, with a 4-meter off-axis primary mirror and 16 meter rotating Coudé laboratory within the telescope pier. The off-axis design requires a mount similar to an 8-meter on-axis telescope. Both the telescope mount and the Coudé laboratory utilize a roller bearing technology in place of the more commonly used hydrostatic bearings. The telescope enclosure utilizes a crawler mechanism for the altitude axis. As these mechanisms have not previously been used in a telescope, understanding the vibration characteristics and the potential impact on the telescope image is important.

This paper presents the methodology used to perform jitter measurements of the enclosure and the mount bearings and servo system in a high-noise environment utilizing seismic accelerometers and high dynamic-range data acquisition equipment, along with digital signal processing (DSP) techniques. Data acquisition and signal processing were implemented in MATLAB.

In the factory acceptance testing of the telescope mount, multiple accelerometers were strategically located to capture the six axes-of-motion of the primary and secondary mirror dummies. The optical sensitivity analysis was used to map these mirror mount displacements and rotations into units of image motion on the focal plane.

Similarly, tests were done with the Coudé rotator, treating the entire rotating instrument lab as a rigid body.

Testing was performed by recording accelerometer data while the telescope control system performed tracking operations typical of various observing scenarios. The analysis of the accelerometer data utilized noise-averaging fast Fourier transform (FFT) routines, spectrograms, and periodograms. To achieve adequate dynamic range at frequencies as low as 3Hz, the use of special filters and advanced windowing functions were necessary. Numerous identical automated tests were compared to identify and select the data sets with the lowest level of external interference.

Similar testing was performed on the telescope enclosure during the factory test campaign. The vibration of the enclosure altitude and azimuth mechanisms were characterized.

This paper details jitter tests using accelerometers placed in locations that allowed the motion of the assemblies to be measured while the control system performed various moves typical of on-sky observations. The measurements were converted into the rigid body motion of the structures and mapped into image motion using the telescope's optical sensitivity analysis.
© (2016) COPYRIGHT Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE). Downloading of the abstract is permitted for personal use only.
William R. McBride II and Daniel R McBride "Vibration measurements of the Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope mount, Coudé rotator, and enclosure assemblies", Proc. SPIE 9911, Modeling, Systems Engineering, and Project Management for Astronomy VII, 99112N (29 August 2016); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2234096
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KEYWORDS
Telescopes

Motion measurement

Servomechanisms

Data acquisition

Solar telescopes

Mirrors

Optical components

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