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Primary Mirror Figure Maintenance of the Hobby-Eberly Telescope using the Segment Alignment Maintenance SystemThe Segment Alignment Maintenance System (SAMs) was installed on McDonald Observatory's Hobby-Eberly Telescope (HET) in August 2001. The SAMs became fully operational in October 2001. The SAMs uses a system of 480 inductive edge sensors to correct misalignments of the HET's 91 primary mirror segments when the segments are perturbed from their aligned reference positions. A special observer estimated and corrects for the global radius of curvature (GroC) mode, a mode unobservable by the edge sensors. The SAMs edge sensor system and (GroC) estimator are able to maintain HET's primary figure for much longer durations than previously had been observed. Telescope image quality has improved, and the amount of overhead time required from primary mirror alignment has been reduced. This paper gives a functional description of the SAMs control system and presents performance verification data. This paper also describes how the SAMs has improved the operational efficiency of the HET.
Document ID
20030002254
Acquisition Source
Marshall Space Flight Center
Document Type
Conference Paper
Authors
Rakoczy, John
(NASA Marshall Space Flight Center Huntsville, AL United States)
Hall, Drew
(NASA Marshall Space Flight Center Huntsville, AL United States)
Howard, Ricky
(NASA Marshall Space Flight Center Huntsville, AL United States)
Ly, William
(NASA Marshall Space Flight Center Huntsville, AL United States)
Weir, John
(NASA Marshall Space Flight Center Huntsville, AL United States)
Montgomery, Edward
(NASA Marshall Space Flight Center Huntsville, AL United States)
Brantley, Lott W.
Date Acquired
August 21, 2013
Publication Date
January 1, 2002
Subject Category
Optics
Meeting Information
Meeting: SPIE Astronomical Telescopes and Instrumentation, Power Telescopes and Instrumentation into the New Millenium Conference
Location: Waikoloa, HI
Country: United States
Start Date: August 21, 2002
End Date: August 28, 2002
Sponsors: International Society for Optical Engineering
Distribution Limits
Public
Copyright
Work of the US Gov. Public Use Permitted.

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