The SOAR telescope was designed to have a bare Aluminum coating. This coating is performed in the Gemini-South sputtering facility. Two coatings have been done on the SOAR mirror (2004 and 2009). On both occasions, the reflectivity obtained for the UV-blue were lower than the reflectivity of the nominal bare Aluminum. Various tests have been done during 2018 and 2019, in order to reach a higher reflectivity in the UV, including changes in the coating recipe. We report here the progress to date, the performance that we have reached and the problems we have faced in this 8-meter coating facility.
KEYWORDS: Telescopes, Control systems, Sensors, Amplifiers, Field programmable gate arrays, Computer programming, Data acquisition, Observatories, Control systems design
The Southern Astrophysical Research (SOAR) Telescope is a 4.1 meter aperture telescope situated in Cerro Pachon, IV Region, Chile. The telescope works from the atmospheric cut-off in the blue (320 nm) to the near infrared and has been designed to deliver the highest possible angular resolution at optical wavelengths. The telescope has an altazimuth mount which is controlled by the Mount Control Unit (MCU) system.
The SOAR Mount Control Unit Upgrade Project seeks to replace the current MCU in the SOAR telescope. The new control unit will be based on the National Instruments cRIO-9039 controller, which will allow to improve the telemetry, improve fault detection and use new digital control techniques.
This will allow a more compact and robust MCU. This paper introduces the project, shows the control architecture and the current status of the new MCU implementation.
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