Douglas R. Neill

LSST Telescope and site status

The Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST) has recently completed its Final Design Review and the Project is preparing for a 2014 construction authorization. The telescope system design supports the LSST mission to conduct a wide, fast, deep survey via a 3-mirror wide field of view optical design, a 3.2-Gpixel camera, and an automated data processing system. The observatory will be constructed in Chile on the summit of Cerro Pachón. This paper summarizes the status of the Telescope and Site group. This group is tasked with design, analysis, and construction of the summit and base facilities and infrastructure necessary to control the survey, capture the light, and calibrate the data. Several early procurements of major telescope subsystems have been completed and awarded to vendors, including the mirror systems, telescope mount assembly, hexapod and rotator systems, and the summit facility. These early contracts provide for the final design of interfaces based upon vendor specific approaches and will enable swift transition into construction. The status of these subsystems and future LSST plans during construction are presented.

A comparison of vibration damping methods for ground based telescopes

Vibration is becoming a more important element in design of telescope structures as these structures become larger and more compliant and include higher bandwidth actuation systems. This paper describes vibration damping methods available for current and future implementation and compares their effectiveness for a model of the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST), a structure that is actually stiffer than most large telescopes. Although facility and mount design, structural stiffening and occasionally vibration isolation have been adequate in telescopes built to date, vibration damping offers a mass-efficient means of reducing vibration response, whether the vibration results from external wind disturbances, telescope slewing, or other internal disturbances from translating or rotating components. The paper presents several damping techniques including constrained layer viscoelastics, viscous and magnetorheological (MR) fluid devices, passive and active piezoelectric dampers, tuned mass dampers (vibration absorbers) and active resonant dampers. Basic architectures and practical implementation considerations are discussed and expected performance is assessed using a finite element model of the LSST. With a goal of reducing settling time during the telescopes surveys, and considering practicalities of integration with the telescope structure, two damping methods were identified as most appropriate: passive tuned mass dampers and active electromagnetic resonant dampers.

Overview of the LSST active optics system

The LSST will utilize an Active Optics System to optimize the image quality by controlling the surface figures of the mirrors (M1M3 and M2) and maintain the relative position of the three optical systems (M1M3 mirror, M2 mirror and the camera). The mirror surfaces are adjusted by means of figure control actuators that support the mirrors. The relative rigid body positions of M1M3, M2 and the camera are controlled through hexapods that support the M2 mirror cell assembly and the camera. The Active Optics System (AOS) is principally operated off of a Look-Up Table (LUT) with corrections provided by wave front sensors.

Substrate temperature and strain during sputter deposition of aluminum on cast borosilicate glass in a Gemini Observatory coating chamber

Temperature and strain measurements obtained during coating of spin-cast borosilicate samples are presented here with an analysis of these results. These tests were performed for the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST) project to verify the possible use of sputtering deposition of optical coating on its large 8.4m diameter primary-tertiary mirror. Made of spin-cast borosilicate glass, the working stress of the mirrors nonpolished surfaces is 100 psi (0.69 MPa), resulting in a local temperature difference limit of 5 degrees C. To ensure representative environmental conditions, the tests were performed in the Gemini Observatory coating chamber located in Hawaii, whose design was utilized to develop the LSST coating chamber design. In particular, this coating chamber is equipped with linear magnetrons built with cooled heat shields directly facing the mirror surface. These measurements have demonstrated that it will be safe for the LSST to use a magnetron sputtering process for coating its borosilicate primary-tertiary mirror.

Wind Induced Image Degradation (Jitter) of the LSST Telescope

A wind pressures PSD measured on the Gemini South Telescope was applied to the FEA model of the LSST telescope to determine the RMS motions of the principal optical systems. These motions were then converted to the time domain. The time domain motions were analyzed in the ZEMAX® software to determine the wind induced image degradation. This degradation was shown to be tolerable.

Active Tangent Link System for Transverse Support of Large Thin Meniscus Mirrors

An active tangent link system was developed to provide transverse support for large thin meniscus mirrors. The support system uses six tangent links to control position and distribute compensating force to the mirror. Each of the six tangent links utilizes an electromechanical actuator and an imbedded lever system working through a load cell and flexure. The lever system reduces the stiffness, strength and force resolution requirements of the electromechanical actuator and allows more compact packaging. Although all six actuators are essentially identical, three of them are operated quasi statically, and are only used to position the optic. The other three are actively operated to produce an optimal and repeatable distribution of the transverse load. This repeatable load distribution allows for a more effective application of a look up table and reduces the demands on the active optics system. A control system was developed to manage the quasi static force equilibrium servo loop using a control matrix that computes the displacements needed to correct any force imbalance with good convergence and stability. This system was successfully retrofitted to the 4.3 meter diameter, 100 mm thick SOAR primary mirror to allow for more expeditious convergence of the mirror figure control system. This system is also intended for use as the transverse support system for the LSST 3.4 meter diameter thin meniscus secondary mirror.

Final design of the LSST hexapods and rotator

The Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST) is a large (8.4 meter) wide-field (3.5 degree) survey telescope, which will be located on the Cerro Pachón summit in Chile. Both the Secondary Mirror (M2) Cell Assembly and Camera utilize hexapods to facilitate optical positioning relative to the Primary/Tertiary (M1M3) Mirror. A rotator resides between the Camera and its hexapod to facilitate tracking. The final design of the hexapods and rotator has been completed by Moog CSA, who are also providing the fabrication and integration and testing. Geometric considerations preclude the use of a conventional hexapod arrangement for the M2 Hexapod. To produce a more structurally efficient configuration the camera hexapod and camera rotator will be produced as a single unit. The requirements of the M2 Hexapod and Camera Hexapod are very similar; consequently to facilitate maintainability both hexapods will utilize identical actuators. The open loop operation of the optical system imposes strict requirements on allowable hysteresis. This requires that the hexapod actuators use flexures rather than more traditional end joints. Operation of the LSST requires high natural frequencies, consequently, to reduce the mass relative to the stiffness, a unique THK rail and carriage system is utilized rather than the more traditional slew bearing. This system utilizes two concentric tracks and 18 carriages.

Manufacture and final tests of the LSST monolithic primary/tertiary mirror

The LSST M1/M3 combines an 8.4 m primary mirror and a 5.1 m tertiary mirror on one glass substrate. The combined mirror was completed at the Richard F. Caris Mirror Lab at the University of Arizona in October 2014. Interferometric measurements show that both mirrors have surface accuracy better than 20 nm rms over their clear apertures, in nearsimultaneous tests, and that both mirrors meet their stringent structure function specifications. Acceptance tests showed that the radii of curvature, conic constants, and alignment of the 2 optical axes are within the specified tolerances. The mirror figures are obtained by combining the lab measurements with a model of the telescope’s active optics system that uses the 156 support actuators to bend the glass substrate. This correction affects both mirror surfaces simultaneously. We showed that both mirrors have excellent figures and meet their specifications with a single bending of the substrate and correction forces that are well within the allowed magnitude. The interferometers do not resolve some small surface features with high slope errors. We used a new instrument based on deflectometry to measure many of these features with sub-millimeter spatial resolution, and nanometer accuracy for small features, over 12.5 cm apertures. Mirror Lab and LSST staff created synthetic models of both mirrors by combining the interferometric maps and the small highresolution maps, and used these to show the impact of the small features on images is acceptably small.

An integrated modeling framework for the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST)

All of the components of the LSST subsystems (Telescope and Site, Camera, and Data Management) are in production. The major systems engineering challenges in this early construction phase are establishing the final technical details of the observatory, and properly evaluating potential deviations from requirements due to financial or technical constraints emerging from the detailed design and manufacturing process. To meet these challenges, the LSST Project Systems Engineering team established an Integrated Modeling (IM) framework including (i) a high fidelity optical model of the observatory, (ii) an atmospheric aberration model, and (ii) perturbation interfaces capable of accounting for quasi static and dynamic variations of the optical train. The model supports the evaluation of three key LSST Measures of Performance: image quality, ellipticity, and their impact on image depth. The various feedback loops improving image quality are also included. The paper shows application examples, as an update to the estimated performance of the Active Optics System, the determination of deployment parameters for the wavefront sensors, the optical evaluation of the final M1M3 surface quality, and the feasibility of satisfying the settling time requirement for the telescope structure.

LSST summit enclosure-facility design optimization using aero-thermal modeling

This paper describes Computational Fluid Dynamic (CFD) analyses combined with thermal analyses for modeling the effects of passive ventilation, enclosure-building configuration and topography on the optical performance of the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST). The primary purpose of the analyses was to evaluate the seeing contribution of the major enclosure-facility elements and to select the features to be adopted in the baseline design from among various configurations being explored by the LSST project and the contracted architectural design team. In addition, one of several simulations for different telescope orientations is presented including various wind-telescope relative azimuth angles. Using a post-processing analysis, the effects of turbulence and thermal variations within the airflow around the buildings and inside the telescope-enclosure configuration were determined, and the optical performance due to the thermal seeing along the optical path was calculated.