| Speaker: | Anupama Chakrapani (Inidian Institute of Astrophysics) |
|---|---|
| Title: | The Thirty Meter Telescope - India Perspective |
| Date (JST): | Thu, Feb 23, 2017, 15:40 - 16:40 |
| Place: | Seminar Room A |
| Abstract: |
The Thirty Meter Telescope is a folded Ritchey-Chretien system, with both the primary and secondary mirrors being hyperboloidal. A tertiary mirror is used to fold and steer the light path to any of the eight instruments that will be mounted on the two main Nasmyth platforms. The focal ratio of the telescope is f/15. The field of view of the telescope is 15 arcminutes (unvignetted) or 20 arcminutes with slight vignetting at the edges of the field. The primary mirror is segmented, consisting of 492 hexagonal segments of size 1.44m (diagonal). The Thirty Meter Telescope is being constructed by an international partnership that collectively brings together the necessary resources in terms of engineering skills and manufacturing capabilities needed to design, construct and operate what is arguably the most ambitious ground based optical/infrared observatory ever constructed. The partners are Canada, China, India, The University of California and Caltech with funding also from the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation. All partners are contributing significant resources to the project with responsibilities for delivering subsystems and instruments shared between all parties. India specifically has responsibility for the development of the observatory software, the adaptive optics guide star catalogue, the primary mirror support and control system hardware, primary mirror segment polishing and various aspects of instrument development. Indian astronomers and engineers are also involved collaboratively with other aspects of the observatory development such as Systems Engineering, the telescope optics alignment and phasing system (APS) and scientific leadership. Indian scientists are involved with the TMT International Science Development Teams who are developing science cases that will help define the modes of observatory operations, guide the first light instrument development and future instrument choices. |
