Optical design of CCAT

Germán Cortés-Medellín; Terry Herter

doi:10.1117/12.670300

23 June 2006 Optical design of CCAT

Proceedings Volume 6267, Ground-based and Airborne Telescopes; 62672F (2006) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.670300
Event: SPIE Astronomical Telescopes + Instrumentation, 2006, Orlando, Florida , United States

Abstract

The Cornell Caltech Atacama Telescope (CCAT) is a 25m-class sub-millimeter radio telescope capable of operating from 300GHz up to 1.5 THz. The CCAT optical design is an f/8 Ritchey-Chretien (RC) system in a dual Nasmyth focus configuration and a 20 arc-min FOV (diffraction limited imaging performance better than 0.31" at the edge of the field). The large FOV is capable to accommodate up to 1200x1200 (Nyquist Sampled) Pixels at 200 microns, with better than 96% Strehl ratio. The telescope pedestal assembly is a counterbalanced elevation over azimuth design. The main reflector surface is segmented and actively controlled to attain diffraction-limited operation up to 200 microns. A flat Mirror located behind the main reflector vertex provides the optical path relay to either of the two Nasmyth platforms and to a bent-Cassegrain focus for surface calibration. We present the imaging characteristics of the CCAT over the 20arc-min FOV at 200 microns at the Nasmyth focal plane, as well as the positioning sensitivity analysis of CCAT's 3.2m-diameter sub-reflector given in terms of the telescope optical performance, antenna pointing requirements and sub-reflector chopping characteristics.

Citation Download Citation

Germán Cortés-Medellín and Terry Herter "Optical design of CCAT", Proc. SPIE 6267, Ground-based and Airborne Telescopes, 62672F (23 June 2006); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.670300

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