The Discovery Channel Telescope (DCT) is a 4.2m aperture telescope with a unique front end pod assembly that incorporates a secondary mirror assembly on one end, and a prime focus corrector group with focal plane instrument on the other. By flipping the pod end-for-end, the DCT is quickly converted from an f/6.13 Ritchey-Chretien telescope with a 21 arcminute field of view, to an f/1.9 two degree wide field prime focus camera. This paper describes the conceptual opto-mechanical design and performance assessment of the Prime Focus Assembly (PFA), including the pod interfaces, structures, optic mounts and the functions and configurations of the various mechanisms within the pod.

Date Published: 29 September 2004
PDF: 12 pages
Proc. SPIE 5495, Astronomical Structures and Mechanisms Technology, (29 September 2004); doi: 10.1117/12.551728

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 5495:
Astronomical Structures and Mechanisms Technology
Joseph Antebi; Dietrich Lemke, Editor(s)