The Opto-mechanical design of the Antarctic Telescope ICE-T

Abstract

The International Concordia Explorer Telescope (ICE-T) is two 60cm wide-field robotic Schmidt telescopes optimized for high-precision CCD photometry in two separate bandpasses. The project is under final design by an international consortium led by the Astrophysical Institute Potsdam, Germany, and was foreseen to be placed at the French-Italian Concordia Station on Dome C in Antarctica. Its core scientific objective would be to detect and investigate the combined effects of extra-solar planets, stellar magnetic activity and non-radial pulsations on the structure and evolution of stars. We present the optical, the mechanical, and the electronic design of the telescope and lay out the operational constraints for its search for extrasolar planets and magnetic stellar activity.

New designs of survey telescopes

“…• field of view (Strassmeier et al 2010). The flatness of focal surface is atwww.an-journal.org Fig.…”

Thermal design and de-icing system for the Antarctic Telescope ICE-T

“…The telescope would be located at Concordia inside of a dome (see [1]), but for observation the dome has to be opened and the telescope is than more or less exposed to the outside weather conditions. The major thermal intercourses ( Figure 1) will be the convective heat exchange with the surrounding air, which is depending on the outside shape and the wind speed, and the radiative heat exchange with the cold sky and -compared with the sky -the thermally rather warm ground.…”

“…The scientific objectives of the ICE-T project are described in a separate paper of this conference [1]. This paper describes particularly the thermal aspects of the telescope design in regard of the Antarctic environment at Concordia Station at Dome C. This environment has major impacts on the telescope during observation and is very different to any kind of other telescope sites -earthbound, air-borne or in space.…”