The commissioning instrument for the Gran Telescopio Canarias: made in Mexico

Abstract

In March 2004 was accepted in the site of Gran Telescopio Canarias (GTC) in La Palma Island, Spain, the Commissioning Instrument (CI) for the GTC. During the GTC integration phase, the CI will be a diagnostic tool for performance verification. The CI features four operation modes-imaging, pupil imaging, Curvature Wave-front sensing (WFS), and high resolution Shack-Hartmann WFS. This instrument was built by the Instituto de Astronomía UNAM in México City and the Centro de Ingeniería y Desarrollo Industrial (CIDESI) in Querétaro, Qro under a GRANTECAN contract after an international public bid. Some optical components were built by Centro de Investigaciones en Óptica (CIO) in León Gto and the biggest mechanical parts were manufactured by Vatech in Morelia Mich. In this paper we made a general description of the CI and we relate how this instrument, build under international standards, was entirely made in Mexico.

Shack–Hartmann mask/pupil registration algorithm for wavefront sensing in segmented mirror telescopes

“…Shack-Hartmann wavefront sensors (SH WFSs) are in widespread use in adaptive optics and for optical alignment and phasing of segmented mirror telescopes, such as the Keck Telescopes [1,2] and Gran Telescopio Canarias [3]. Among the giant telescopes now under development, Shack-Hartmann sensors have been adopted for the alignment of the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT) [4] and are under consideration for similar roles for the Giant Magellan Telescope (GMT) [5] and the European Extremely Large Telescope [6].…”