The OOF Holography Technique: Correcting the Effects of Gravity and Thermal Gradients on Large Filled-Aperture Telescopes

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• Bojan Nikolic, Cavendish Astrophysics
• Tuesday 28 April 2009, 16:30-17:30
• Ryle Seminar Room, Cavendish Laboratory.

If you have a question about this talk, please contact Jane Buckle.

The maximum practical size of large single-dish telescopes is mainly defined by the effects three forces: gravity, thermal gradients, and wind. All of these can in principle be corrected by the new generation of active surfaces on telescopes if we knew the actual deformations that are caused by them. At current cm, mm and sub-mm telescopes, measuring these deformations corresponds to measurement of one part in a million which is challenging for conventional survey techniques. In this talk I will introduce the phase-retrieval holography technique based on Out-Of-Focus (OOF) beam maps that is particularly suited to measuring these deformations. I will also present the application of this technique to the 100m-diameter Green Bank Telescope where we have been able to eliminate residual gain variation due to gravity and open up the daytime for efficient observations at mm-wavelengths.

This talk is part of the Cavendish Astrophysics Seminars series.

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