Xinnan Li

The Large Sky Area Multi-Object Fiber Spectroscopic Telescope (LAMOST)

The Large Sky Area Multi-Object Fiber Spectroscopic Telescope (LAMOST, also called the Guo Shou Jing Telescope) is a special reflecting Schmidt telescope. LAMOST’s special design allows both a large aperture (effective aperture of 3.6 m–4.9 m) and a wide field of view (FOV) (5 ° ). It has an innovative active reflecting Schmidt configuration which continuously changes the mirror’s surface that adjusts during the observation process and combines thin deformable mirror active optics with segmented active optics. Its primary mirror (6.67 m×6.05 m) and active Schmidt mirror (5.74 m×4.40 m) are both segmented, and composed of 37 and 24 hexagonal sub-mirrors respectively. By using a parallel controllable fiber positioning technique, the focal surface of 1.75 m in diameter can accommodate 4000 optical fibers. Also, LAMOST has 16 spectrographs with 32 CCD cameras. LAMOST will be the telescope with the highest rate of spectral acquisition. As a national large scientific project, the LAMOST project was formally proposed in 1996, and approved by the Chinese government in 1997. The construction started in 2001, was completed in 2008 and passed the official acceptance in June 2009. The LAMOST pilot survey was started in October 2011 and the spectroscopic survey will launch in September 2012. Up to now, LAMOST has released more than 480 000 spectra of objects. LAMOST will make an important contribution to the study of the large-scale structure of the Universe, structure and evolution of the Galaxy, and cross-identification of multiwaveband properties in celestial objects.

Progress of Antarctic Schmidt Telescopes (AST3) for Dome A

Prelimenary site testing led by Chinese Center of Antarctic Astronomy (CCAA) shows that the highest point of the Antarctic Plateau Dome A has very clear sky, good seeing, slow wind, low boundary layer and very low precipitable water vapour which make it the best site on earth for optical/IR and sub-mm observations. Chinese Small Telescope ARray (CSTAR) was installed at Dome A in 2008 and have automatically observed for about 3 antarctic winters. The three Antarctic Schmidt telescopes(AST3) with entrance pupil diameter 500mm are the second antarctic project proposed by CCAA and the first AST are being constructed in NIAOT now which is planned to be mounted on Dome A at the beginning of 2011. All the tracking components were tested in the low temperature chamber and an adaptive defrosting method is designed to prevent the frost building up on the schmidt plate.

THE LAMOST SURVEY OF BACKGROUND QUASARS IN THE VICINITY OF THE ANDROMEDA AND TRIANGULUM GALAXIES. II. RESULTS FROM THE COMMISSIONING OBSERVATIONS AND THE PILOT SURVEYS

We present new quasars discovered in the vicinity of the Andromeda and Triangulum galaxies with the Large Sky Area Multi-Object Fiber Spectroscopic Telescope, also named the Guoshoujing Telescope, during the 2010 and 2011 observational seasons. Quasar candidates are selected based on the available Sloan Digital Sky Survey, Kitt Peak National Observatory 4 m telescope, Xuyi Schmidt Telescope Photometric Survey optical, and Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer near-infrared photometric data. We present 509 new quasars discovered in a stripe of ~135 deg^2 from M31 to M33 along the Giant Stellar Stream in the 2011 pilot survey data sets, and also 17 new quasars discovered in an area of ~100 deg^2 that covers the central region and the southeastern halo of M31 in the 2010 commissioning data sets. These 526 new quasars have i magnitudes ranging from 15.5 to 20.0, redshifts from 0.1 to 3.2. They represent a significant increase of the number of identified quasars in the vicinity of M31 and M33. There are now 26, 62, and 139 known quasars in this region of the sky with i magnitudes brighter than 17.0, 17.5, and 18.0, respectively, of which 5, 20, and 75 are newly discovered. These bright quasars provide an invaluable collection with which to probe the kinematics and chemistry of the interstellar/intergalactic medium in the Local Group of galaxies. A total of 93 quasars are now known with locations within 2fdg5 of M31, of which 73 are newly discovered. Tens of quasars are now known to be located behind the Giant Stellar Stream, and hundreds are behind the extended halo and its associated substructures of M31. The much enlarged sample of known quasars in the vicinity of M31 and M33 can potentially be utilized to construct a perfect astrometric reference frame to measure the minute proper motions (PMs) of M31 and M33, along with the PMs of substructures associated with the Local Group of galaxies. Those PMs are some of the most fundamental properties of the Local Group.

Kunlun Dark Universe Survey Telescope

Chinese Antarctic Observatory has been listed as National large research infrastructure during twelfth five-year plan. Kunlun Dark Universe Survey Telescope, one of two major facility of Chinese Antarctic Observatory, is a 2.5-meter optic/infrared telescope and will be built at the Chinese Antarctic Kunlun Station. It is intended to take advantage of the exceptional seeing conditions, as well as the low temperature reducing background for infrared observations. KDUST will adopt an innovative optical system, which can deliver very good image quality over a 2 square degree flat field of view. All of parts of it have been designed carefully to endure the extremely harsh environment. KDUST will be perched on a 14.5-meter-high tower to lift it above the turbulence layer. In this paper, preliminary design and key technology pre-research of KDUST will be introduced.

The AST3 project: Antarctic Survey Telescopes for Dome A

The AST3 project consists of three large field of view survey telescopes with 680mm primary mirror, mainly for observations of supernovas and extrasolar planets searching from Antarctic Dome A where is very likely to be the best astronomical site on earth for astronomical observations from optical wavelength to thermal infrared and beyond, according to the four years site testing works by CCAA, UNSW and PRIC. The first AST3 was mounted on Dome A in Jan. 2012 and automatically run from March to May 2012. Based on the onsite winterization performance of the first AST3, some improvements such as the usage of high resolution encoders, defrosting method, better thermal control and easier onsite assembly et al were done for the second one. The winterization observation of AST3-2 in Mohe was carried on from Nov. 2013 to Apr. 2014, where is the most northern and coldest part of China with the lowest temperature around -50°. The technical modifications and testing observation results will be given in this paper. The third AST3 will be optimized from optical to thermal infrared aiming diffraction limited imaging with K band. Thus the whole AST3 project will be a good test bench for the development of future larger aperture optical/infrared Antarctic telescopes such as the proposed 2.5m Kunlun Dark Universe Survey Telescope project.

Preliminary design of the Kunlun Dark Universe Survey Telescope (KDUST)

From theoretical analysis and site testing work for 4 years on Dome A, Antarctica, we can reasonably predict that it is a very good astronomical site, as good as or even better than Dome C and suitable for observations ranging from optical to infrared & sub-mm wavelengths. After the Chinese Small Telescope ARray (CSTAR), which was composed of four small fixed telescopes with diameter of 145mm and the three Antarctic Survey Telescopes (AST3) with 500mm entrance diameter, the Kunlun Dark Universe Survey Telescope (KDUST) with diameter of 2.5m is proposed. KDUST will adopt an innovative optical system which can deliver very good image quality over a 2 square degree flat field of view. Some other features are: a fixed focus suitable for different instruments, active optics for miscollimation correction, a lens-prisms that can be used as an atmospheric dispersion corrector or as a very low-dispersion spectrometer when moved in / out of the main optical path without changing the performance of the system, and a compact structure to make easier transportation to Dome A. KDUST will be mounted on a tower with height 15m in order to make a full use of the superb free atmospheric seeing.

Strategies of primary mirror segment fabrication for CFGT

An extremely large telescope named Chinese Future Giant Telescope (CFGT) has been presented. The primary mirror of CFGT is a 30-meter diameter hyperboloid with a focal ratio F/1.2 and it consists of over one thousand of sector-shaped segments with the size about 1.1-meter in diagonal. Based on the optical design concept and the experience of existing large segmented primary mirror, we explore the segment fabrication and testing issues in this paper. The relationship between external contour, the size and the asphericity of sub-mirror is studied. Two potential segment fabrication approaches for mass-production-scale are discussed. One is the optical replication. The other is stressed-mirror polishing. Both of two processes are tightly combined with several key techniques and devices, the ion-beam figuring, large annular polisher, and the stressed lap. Some preliminary concepts for testing of l-meter class convex/concave off-axis aspheric surface are discussed.

Fabricating and testing of the trim plate for the Zwicky Transient Facility

The Zwicky Transient Facility (ZTF) is a new time-domain survey project that will use a new camera with a 47 square degree field of view mounted on the Samuel Oschin 48-inch Schmidt telescope. To achieve good image quality over all sixteen 6K*6K CCDs (386mm＊395mm corner to corner), a trim plate was added in front of the existing cemented achromatic doublet to form an air-spaced triplet corrector. The trim plate is a Schmidt corrector using fused silica with 1348mm in diameter but only 15mm in thickness. The plate has been completed at NIAOT and already been mounted to the ZTF, the PSF seems very good. The detailed fabrication process and testing to the trim plate from fine grinding to finish are presented in this paper, which includes CMM test, NULL test design, and Computer Controlled Polishing process developed at NIAOT.

Preliminary study on broadband antireflection coatings for large aperture telescopes

A broadband anti-reflective (AR) coating design for astronomical large-aperture telescopes is proposed. We give simulations of two-, three- and four-layer silica sol-gel on fused silica and finally get the optimal optical constants. As a comparison, we discuss the traditional dielectric material that has been applied to broadband AR coatings. To better guide the following experiment, we also conduct error analysis and feasibility analysis, combining with the technological characteristics of sol-gel. The analytical method is suitable for other wavebands and substrates. It is also instructive for large area AR coatings in the field of solar cells.

Research on key technical issues of contact method for large diameter off-axis aspheric segments

The research works are summarized for Φ1.1m off-axis aspheric segments which are scaled-down TMT segments polished by NIAOT using SMAP (Stressed Mirror Annular Polishing) method in the previous phase and testing preparations for 1.45m mirrors. The detailed introduction is given on result of errors analysis in contact detection testing of segments. In the second part, the selected basis of sampling number for contact-type detector arrays and the terms number of Zernike polynomials we need are studied. And the situations on orthogonality destruction of Zernike polynomials in discrete points sampling case and spectral analysis for each order Spherical aberrations in continuous sampling are introduced.