The enclosure for the Advanced Technology Solar Telescope (ATST) is both a wind shield and a source of seeing. Its design must minimize self-induced seeing while remaining within cost constraints and balancing with other error budget items. We report the methods used to quantify seeing performance, including thermal modeling, seeing estimation, and systems engineering error budgets. Thermal modeling is performed using a commercial software package that applies measured site weather data to a CAD-generated enclosure model. Seeing estimation is performed using a simple aerodynamic treatment. The results, along with measured site wind and temperature distributions, are combined into a "bottom-up" performance prediction using Monte Carlo techniques.

Date Published: 16 September 2004
PDF: 11 pages
Proc. SPIE 5497, Modeling and Systems Engineering for Astronomy, (16 September 2004); doi: 10.1117/12.551530

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 5497:
Modeling and Systems Engineering for Astronomy
Simon C. Craig; Martin J. Cullum, Editor(s)