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Subaru Telescope
Subaru Telescope -- The Subaru Telescope is an optical-infrared telescope at the 4,200m summit of Mauna Kea on the island of Hawaii.
The Telescope is a new generation telescope not only because of the size of its mirror with an effective aperture of 8.2 meters, but also because of the various revolutionary technologies used to achieve an outstanding observational performance.
An active support system that maintains an unprecedentedly high mirror surface accuracy, a new dome design to suppress local atmospheric turbulence, an extremely accurate tracking mechanism using magnetic driving systems, seven observational instruments installed at the four foci, and an auto-exchanger system to use the observational instruments effectively are just some of the unique features associated with this telescope.
These sophisticated systems have been utilized and fine-tuned since Subaru Telescope is First Light.
The heart of Subaru Telescope is its monolithic primary mirror with an 8.2 m effective aperture. It took 3 years to produce the homogeneous primary mirror blank, 30 cm thick and 8.3 m in diameter, using ULE glass.
It then took 4 years to complete the fabrication of the primary mirror, drilling 261 holes for actuators on the back surface of the mirror blank and polishing the front surface.
All the work including the fabrication and transporting of the mirror was nerve racking.
The enclosure uses a cylindrical shape rather than the more common hemispherical shape. The cylindrical shape prevents rising warm and turbulent air entering from the outside, yet it allows warm air produced inside the enclosure to escape rapidly.
The new enclosure design, developed from hydrodynamic tests and computer simulations, has performed as expected since the start of observations.
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Subaru Telescope
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