UKIRT upgrades program: preparing for the 21st century

Timothy G. Hawarden; Charles P. Cavedoni; Nicholas P. Rees; Timothy C. Chuter; Donald G. Pettie; Colin M. Humphries; Richard J. Bennett; E. Etad; John W. Harris; Brian Mack; Eckhart Pitz; Andreas Glindemann; Ralf-Rainer Rohloff

doi:10.1117/12.176215

1 June 1994 UKIRT upgrades program: preparing for the 21st century

Timothy G. Hawarden, Charles P. Cavedoni, Nicholas P. Rees, Timothy C. Chuter, Donald G. Pettie, Colin M. Humphries, Richard J. Bennett, E. Etad, John W. Harris, Brian Mack, Eckhart Pitz, Andreas Glindemann, Ralf-Rainer Rohloff

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Proceedings Volume 2199, Advanced Technology Optical Telescopes V; (1994) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.176215
Event: 1994 Symposium on Astronomical Telescopes and Instrumentation for the 21st Century, 1994, Kailua, Kona, HI, United States

Abstract

In the 1970s the pioneering thin-mirror 3.8 m United Kingdom Infrared Telescope (UKIRT) of the UK Science and Engineering Research Council (SERC) was conceived as a low-cost `light bucket', with an 80% encircled-energy diameter <EQ 3'. However the delivered primary mirror had an 80 encircled- energy diameter of approximately 1' and the telescope has regularly delivered sub-arc-second images. To exploit this quality and to keep UKIRT competitive in a 21st century of 8-meter telescopes, in 1991 the SERC initiated an ambitious Upgrades Program, with the goal of routinely providing near- diffraction limited images at 2.2 microns. The major elements of the program are an adaptive tip-tilt secondary system, an active five-axis secondary collimation system, an upgraded primary mirror support system providing active control of the main optical aberrations, and modifications to the telescope and its enclosure to reduce or eliminate dome and mirror seeing, so as to take advantage of the excellent natural seeing on Mauna Kea. This paper outlines the overall project goals, the proposed strategies for upgrading the telescope and the progress to date.

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Timothy G. Hawarden, Charles P. Cavedoni, Nicholas P. Rees, Timothy C. Chuter, Donald G. Pettie, Colin M. Humphries, Richard J. Bennett, E. Etad, John W. Harris, Brian Mack, Eckhart Pitz, Andreas Glindemann, and Ralf-Rainer Rohloff "UKIRT upgrades program: preparing for the 21st century", Proc. SPIE 2199, Advanced Technology Optical Telescopes V, (1 June 1994); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.176215

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