The Optical System of the SOFIA Telescope
Abstract
The optical system of the SOFIA telescope consists of a Cassegrain telescope with an aperture of 2.5 m and a Nasmyth focus. The central optical part of the telescope is the monolithic 2.7-m Zerodur primary mirror. The lightweighting factor is 80 The primary mirror is supported by a very stiff CFRP structure. The secondary mirror is a lightweighted SiC mirror and has a chopping mechanism. The telescope has three built-in imagers for acquisition and tracking, one main-optics sharing focal plane imager and two boresighted imagers with a wide and a fine field of view. The poster presents the current status of the development.
- Publication:
-
American Astronomical Society Meeting Abstracts #193
- Pub Date:
- January 1999
- Bibcode:
- 1999AAS...19312102B