Modern technologies of fabrication and testing of large convex secondary mirrors

Chang Jin Oh; Andrew E. Lowman; Matt Dubin; Greg Smith; Eric Frater; Chunyu Zhao; James H. Burge

doi:10.1117/12.2233887

22 July 2016 Modern technologies of fabrication and testing of large convex secondary mirrors

Chang Jin Oh, Andrew E. Lowman, Matt Dubin, Greg Smith, Eric Frater, Chunyu Zhao, James H. Burge

Proceedings Volume 9912, Advances in Optical and Mechanical Technologies for Telescopes and Instrumentation II; 99120R (2016) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2233887
Event: SPIE Astronomical Telescopes + Instrumentation, 2016, Edinburgh, United Kingdom

Abstract

Modern large telescopes such as TAO, LSST, TMT and EELT require 0.9m-4m monolithic convex secondary mirrors. The fabrication and testing of these large convex secondary mirrors of astronomical telescopes is getting challenging as the aperture of the mirror is getting bigger. The biggest challenge to fabricate these large convex aspheric mirrors is to measure the surface figure to a few nanometers, while maintaining the testing and fabrication cycle to be efficient to minimize the downtime. For the last a couple of decades there was huge advancement in the metrology and fabrication of large aspheric secondary mirrors. College of Optical Sciences in the University Arizona developed a full fabrication and metrology process with extremely high accuracy and efficiency for manufacturing the large convex secondary mirrors.

In this paper modern metrology systems including Swing-Arm Optical Coordinate Measuring System (SOCMM) which is comparable to Interferometry and a Sub-aperture stitching interferometry scalable to a several meters have been presented. Also a Computer Controlled Fabrication Process which produces extremely fine surface figure and finish has been demonstrated. These most recent development has been applied to the fabrication and testing of 0.9m aspheric convex secondary mirror for the Tokyo Atacama Observatory’s 6.5m telescope and the result has been presented.

Citation Download Citation

Chang Jin Oh, Andrew E. Lowman, Matt Dubin, Greg Smith, Eric Frater, Chunyu Zhao, and James H. Burge "Modern technologies of fabrication and testing of large convex secondary mirrors", Proc. SPIE 9912, Advances in Optical and Mechanical Technologies for Telescopes and Instrumentation II, 99120R (22 July 2016); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2233887

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