In this work we discuss some options for using Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) for daylight alignment activities and maintenance of optical telescopes, relating them to a small numbers of parameters, and tracing which could be the schemes, requirements and benefits for employing them both at the stage of erection and maintenance. UAVs can easily reach the auto-collimation points of optical components of the next class of Extremely Large Telescopes. They can be equipped with tools for the measurement of the co-phasing, scattering, and reflectivity of segmented mirrors or environmental parameters like C²_n and C²_T to characterize the seeing during both the day and the night.

Date Published: 22 July 2016
PDF: 11 pages
Proc. SPIE 9912, Advances in Optical and Mechanical Technologies for Telescopes and Instrumentation II, 991210 (22 July 2016); doi: 10.1117/12.2232807

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 9912:
Advances in Optical and Mechanical Technologies for Telescopes and Instrumentation II
Ramón Navarro; James H. Burge, Editor(s)