Motivated by the ever increasing pursuit of science with the transient sky (dubbed Time Domain Astronomy or TDA), we are fabricating and will commission a new deployable tertiary mirror for the Keck I telescope (K1DM3) at the W.M. Keck Observatory. This paper presents the detailed design of K1DM3 with emphasis on the opto- mechanics. This project has presented several design challenges. Foremost are the competing requirements to avoid vignetting the light path when retracted against a sufficiently rigid system for high-precision and repeatable pointing. The design utilizes an actuated swing arm to retract the mirror or deploy it into a kinematic coupling. The K1DM3 project has also required the design and development of custom connections to provide power, communications, and compressed air to the system. This NSF-MRI funded project is planned to be commissioned in Spring 2017.

Date Published: 15 July 2016
PDF: 22 pages
Proc. SPIE 9910, Observatory Operations: Strategies, Processes, and Systems VI, 99102I (15 July 2016); doi: 10.1117/12.2233237

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 9910:
Observatory Operations: Strategies, Processes, and Systems VI
Alison B. Peck; Robert L. Seaman; Chris R. Benn, Editor(s)