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Communication Dans Un Congrès Année : 2020

Performance of Kitt Peak’s Mayall 4-meter telescope during DESI commissioning

Aaron M. Meisner
  • Fonction : Auteur
Behzad Abareshi
  • Fonction : Auteur
Arjun Dey
  • Fonction : Auteur
Connie Rockosi
  • Fonction : Auteur
Richard Joyce
  • Fonction : Auteur
David Sprayberry
  • Fonction : Auteur
Robert Besuner
  • Fonction : Auteur
Klaus Honscheid
  • Fonction : Auteur
David Kirkby
  • Fonction : Auteur
Hui Kong
  • Fonction : Auteur
Martin Landriau
  • Fonction : Auteur
Michael Levi
  • Fonction : Auteur
Ting Li
  • Fonction : Auteur
Bob Marshall
  • Fonction : Auteur
Paul Martini
  • Fonction : Auteur
Ashley Ross
  • Fonction : Auteur
David Brooks
Peter Doel
  • Fonction : Auteur
Yutong Duan
  • Fonction : Auteur
Enrique Gaztañaga
  • Fonction : Auteur
Francisco Prada
  • Fonction : Auteur
Michael Schubnell
  • Fonction : Auteur
Gregory Tarlѐ
  • Fonction : Auteur

Résumé

In preparation for the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI), a new top end was installed on the Mayall 4-meter telescope at Kitt Peak National Observatory. The refurbished telescope and the DESI instrument were successfully commissioned on sky between 2019 October and 2020 March. Here we describe the pointing, tracking and imaging performance of the Mayall telescope equipped with its new DESI prime focus corrector, as measured by six guider cameras sampling the outer edge of DESI’s focal plane. Analyzing ~500,000 guider images acquired during commissioning, we find a median delivered image FWHM of 1.1 arcseconds (in the r-band at 650 nm), with the distribution extending to a best-case value of ~0.6 arcseconds. The point spread function is well characterized by a Moffat profile with a power-law index of β ≈ 3.5 and little dependence of β on FWHM. The shape and size of the PSF delivered by the new corrector at a field angle of 1.57 degrees are very similar to those measured with the old Mayall corrector on axis. We also find that the Mayall achieves excellent pointing accuracy (several arcseconds RMS) and minimal open-loop tracking drift (< 1 milliarcsecond per second), improvements on the telecope’s pre-DESI performance. In the future, employing DESI’s active focus adjustment capabilities will likely further improve the Mayall/DESI delivered image quality.

Dates et versions

hal-03115886 , version 1 (19-01-2021)

Identifiants

Citer

Aaron M. Meisner, Behzad Abareshi, Arjun Dey, Connie Rockosi, Richard Joyce, et al.. Performance of Kitt Peak’s Mayall 4-meter telescope during DESI commissioning. SPIE Astronomical Telescopes + Instrumentation 2020, Dec 2020, Online, United States. pp.1144794, ⟨10.1117/12.2574776⟩. ⟨hal-03115886⟩

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