Primary mirror figure maintenance of the Hobby-Eberly Telescope using the segment alignment maintenance system

John M. Rakoczy; Drew Hall; Richard T. Howard; William Ly; John T. Weir; Edward E. Montgomery IV; Mark T. Adams; John A. Booth; James R. Fowler; Gregory H. Ames

doi:10.1117/12.456734

4 February 2003 Primary mirror figure maintenance of the Hobby-Eberly Telescope using the Segment Alignment Maintenance System

John M. Rakoczy, Drew Hall, Richard T. Howard, William Ly, John T. Weir, Edward E. Montgomery IV, Mark T. Adams, John A. Booth, James R. Fowler, Gregory H. Ames

Author Affiliations +

Proceedings Volume 4837, Large Ground-based Telescopes; (2003) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.456734
Event: Astronomical Telescopes and Instrumentation, 2002, Waikoloa, Hawai'i, United States

Abstract

The Segment Alignment Maintenance System (SAMS) was installed on McDonald Observatory's Hobby-Eberly Telescope (HET) in August 2001. The SAMS became fully operational in October 2001. The SAMS uses a system of 480 inductive edge sensors to correct misalignments of the HET's 91 primary mirror segments when the segments are perturbed from their aligned reference positions. A special observer estimates and corrects for the global radius of curvature (GRoC) mode, a mode unobservable by the edge sensors. The SAMS edge sensor system and GRoC estimator are able to maintain HET's primary figure for longer durations than previously had been observed. This paper gives a functional description of the SAMS control system and presents performance verification data.

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John M. Rakoczy, Drew Hall, Richard T. Howard, William Ly, John T. Weir, Edward E. Montgomery IV, Mark T. Adams, John A. Booth, James R. Fowler, and Gregory H. Ames "Primary mirror figure maintenance of the Hobby-Eberly Telescope using the Segment Alignment Maintenance System", Proc. SPIE 4837, Large Ground-based Telescopes, (4 February 2003); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.456734

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