The thermal control of the new solar telescope at Big Bear Observatory

Document Type

Conference Proceeding

Publication Date

10-6-2006

Abstract

We present the basic design of the THermal Control System (THCS) for the 1.6-meter New Solar Telescope (NST) at the Big Bear Solar Observatory (BBSO), California. The NST is an off-axis Gregorian telescope with an equatorial mount and an open support structure. Since the telescope optics is exposed to the air, it is imperative to control the local/dome seeing, i.e., temperature fluctuations along the exposed optical path have to be minimized. To accomplish this, a THCS is implemented to monitor the dome environment and interact with the louver system of the dome to optimize instrument performance. In addition, an air knife is used to minimize mirror seeing. All system components have to communicate with the Telescope Control System (TCS), a hierarchical system of computers linking the various aspects of the entire telescope system, e.g., the active mirror control, adaptive optics, dome and telescope tracking, weather station, etc. We will provide an initial thermal model of the dome environment and first measurements taken in the recently replaced BBSO dome.

Identifier

33749241088 (Scopus)

ISBN

[0819463329, 9780819463326]

Publication Title

Proceedings of SPIE the International Society for Optical Engineering

External Full Text Location

https://doi.org/10.1117/12.671777

ISSN

0277786X

Volume

6267 I

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