The Principles of Astronomical Telescope Design

Table of Contents.- Dedication.- Contributing Authors.- Preface of English edition.- Preface of Chinese edition.- Acknowledgments.- Fundamentals of Optical Telescopes.- A brief history of optical telescopes.- General astronomical requirements.- Angular resolution.- Light collecting power.- Field-of-view and combined efficiency.- Atmospheric windows and site selection.- Fundamentals of astronomical optics.- Optical systems for astronomical telescopes.- Aberrations and their calculations.- Formulas of telescope aberrations.- Field corrector design.- Ray tracing, spot diagram, and merit function.- Modern optical theory.- Optical transfer function.- Wave aberrations and modulation transfer function.- Wavefront error and the Strehl ratio.- Image spatial frequency.- Image property of a segmented mirror system.- References.- Mirror Design of Optical Telescopes.- Specifications for optical mirror design.- Fundamental requirements for optical mirrors.- Mirror surface error and support systems.- Surface error fitting and slope error expression.- Lightweight primary mirror design.- Significance of lightweight mirrors for telescopes.- Thin mirror design.- Honeycomb mirror design.- Multi-mirror telescopes.- Segmented mirror telescopes.- Metal and lightweight mirrors.- Mirror polishing and mirror supporting.- Material properties of optical mirrors.- Optical mirror polishing.- Vacuum coating.- Mirror support mechanisms.- Mirror seeing and stray light control.- Mirror seeing effect.- Stray light control.- References.- Telescope Structures and Control System.- Telescope mounting.- Equatorial mounting.- Altitude-azimuth mounting.- Stewart platform mounting telescope.- Fixed mirror or fixed altitude mountings.- Telescope tube and other structure design.- Specifications for telescope tube design.- Telescope tube design.- Support vane design for secondary mirror.- Telescope bearing design.- Structural static analysis.- Telescope drive and control.- Specifications of telescope drive system.- Trends in drive system design.- Encoder systems for telescopes.- Pointing error corrections.- Servo control and distributed intelligence.- Star guiding.- Structural dynamic analysis.- Wind and earthquake spectrums.- Dynamic simulation of telescope structures.- Combined structural and control simulation.- Structural vibration control.- Telescope foundation design.- References.- Advanced Techniques for Optical Telescopes.- Active and adaptive optics.- Basic principles of active and adaptive optics.- Wavefront sensors.- Actuators, deformable mirrors, phase correctors, and metrology system.- Active optical system and phasing sensors.- Curvature sensors and tip-tilt devices.- Atmosphere disturbance and adaptive optics compensation.- Artificial laser guide star and adaptive optics.- Atmosphere tomography and multi-conjugate adaptive optics.- Adaptive secondary mirror design.- Optical interferometers.- Speckle interferometer technique.- Michelson interferometer.- Fizeau interferometry.- Intensity interferometry.- Amplitude interferometer.- References.- Space Telescopes and Their Development.- Orbit environmental conditions.- Orbit definition.- Orbit thermal conditions.- Other orbit conditions.- Attitude control of space telescopes.- Attitude sensors.- Attitude actuators.- Space telescope projects.- Hubble Space Telescope.- James Webb Space Telescope.- Space Interferometry Mission and other space programs.- References.- Fundamentals of Radio Telescopes.- Brief history of radio telescopes.- Scientific requirements for radio telescopes.- Atmospheric radio windows and site selection.- Parameters of radio antennas.- Radiation pattern.- Antenna gain.- Antenna temperature and noise temperature.- Antenna efficiency.- Polarization properties.- Optical arrangement of radio antennas.- Characteristics of offset antennas.- Radio telescope receivers.- References.- Radio Telescope Design.- Antenna tolerance and homologous design.- Transmission loss of electromagnetic waves.- Antenna tolerance theory.- Antenna homology.- Antenna surface best fitting.- Positional tolerances of antenna reflector and feed.- Aperture blockage and ground radiation pickup.- Radio telescope structure design.- General types of radio antennas.- Steerable parabolic antenna design.- Wind effect on antenna structures.- Active control of radio telescopes.- Radio interferometers.- Fundamentals of radio interferometers.- Aperture synthesis telescopes.- Weiner-Khinchin and Van Cittert-Zernike theorems.- Calibration: active optics after observation.- Very Large Array, Expanded Very Large Array, and Square Kilometer Array.- Very Long Baseline Array.- Space radio interferometers.- References.- Chapter 8 Millimeter and Sub-millimeter Wavelength Telescopes.- Thermal effects on millimeter wavelength telescopes.- Characteristics of millimeter wavelength telescopes.- Thermal conditions of open air antennas.- Heat transfer formulae.- Panel thermal design.- Backup structure thermal design.- Structural design of millimeter wavelength antennas.- Panel requirements and manufacture.- Backup structure design.- Design of chopping secondary mirror.- Sensors, metrology, and optical pointing telescopes.- Active optics used in millimeter antennas.- Antenna lightning protection.- Carbon fiber composite materials.- Properties of carbon fiber composites.- Thermal deformation of shaped sandwiched structures.- CFRP-metal joint design.- Holographic measurements and quasi-optics.- Holographic measurements of antenna surfaces.- Surface panel adjusting.- Quasi-optics.- Broadband planar antennas.- References.- Infrared, Ultra-violet, X-ray, and Gamma Ray Telescopes.- Infrared telescopes.- Requirements of infrared telescopes.- Structural properties of infrared telescopes.- Balloon-borne and space based infrared telescopes.- X-ray and ultra-violet telescopes.- Properties of X-ray radiation.- X-ray imaging telescopes.- Space X-ray telescopes.- Micro-Arc-second X-ray Image Mission.- Space ultra-violet telescopes.- Gamma ray telescopes.- Gamma ray coded mask telescopes.- Compton scattering and pair telescopes.- Space gamma ray telescopes.- Air Cherenkov telescopes.- Extensive air shower array.- Major ground based gamma ray telescopes.- References.- Gravitational Wave, Cosmic Ray and.- Dark Matter Telescopes.- Gravitational wave telescopes.- Gravitational wave fundamentals.- Resonant gravitational wave telescopes.- Laser interferometer gravitational wave detectors.- Important gravitational wave telescope projects.- Other gravitational wave and gravity telescopes.- Cosmic ray telescopes.- Cosmic ray spectrum.- Cosmic ray EAS array telescopes.- Cosmic ray fluorescence detectors.- Magnetic spectrometer detectors.- Dark matter detectors.- Cold and hot dark matter.- Detection of neutrinos.- Status of neutrino telescopes.- Detection of cold dark matter.- References.- Review of Astronomical Telescopes.- Electromagnetic wave and atmosphere transmission.- Non-electromagnetic telescopes.- Ground astronomical telescopes.- Space astronomical telescopes.- Man's space missions.- Reconnaissance Telescopes.- References.- Appendix A: Abbreviations of telescope names.- Appendix B: Prefixes for standard units.- Index.