Everything about Mmt Observatory totally explained
The MMT Observatory (MMTO) is an
astronomical observatory on the site of
Fred Lawrence Whipple Observatory (IAU observatory code 696). The Whipple observatory complex is located on
Mount Hopkins,
Arizona, USA (55 km south of
Tucson) in the
Santa Rita Mountains. The observatory is run by the
University of Arizona and the
Smithsonian Institution, and has a visitor center in nearby
Amado, Arizona.
The MMTO is the home of the Multiple Mirror Telescope (MMT), which currently has a
primary mirror 6.5 m in
diameter. The name originally comes from the fact that the light gathering for the
telescope was done by six smaller mirrors before the current primary mirror was installed. The current mirror is notable because it's of a special lightweight honeycomb design made by the
University of Arizona Mirror Laboratory.
The MMT is also notable because of its interesting building, which doesn't look in the least like the typical observatory dome. The building's unique shape is in order to completely roll back the walls and roof around the telescope, thus allowing it to cool down very quickly in order to improve the
seeing.
Multiple Mirror Telescope
The MMT operated between 1979 and 1998 with 6 mirrors, each with a diameter of 1.8 meters, providing the equivalent gathering area of a 4.5-meter telescope, making it the third largest optical telescope in the world at the time of its dedication. It featured ambitious design innovations including its unusual optical design proposed by
Aden Meinel, a co-rotating building and an altitude-azimuth mount.
With the exception of the
Bolshoi Teleskop Azimutalnyi, all major optical telescopes prior to the MMT used
equatorial mounts. The MMT heralded a change in telescope design; all major optical telescopes since the MMT have been built with alt-azimuth mounts. Several technologies pioneered at the MMT contributed to the success of the subsequent generation of large telescopes. These included: high dynamic-range servos for the
alt-azimuth mount; highly accurate pointing that eliminated the need for sky charts; co-alignment and co-phasing of multiple telescopes; improvements to optical performance by attention to the
thermal environment of the facility; contributions to vacuum coatings deposition, optics cleaning, and maintenance; and early experiments in co-phased adaptive optics.
One of the reasons for its original multiple mirror design was the difficulty of casting large mirrors. One solution to this problem was found by Roger Angel of
Steward Observatory, of the University of Arizona, who cast mirrors with a honeycomb structure in the interior of a rotating oven. This made it possible to replace the six mirrors with a single 6.5-meter one. The original building and part of the structure could be reused. The new mirror was cast and polished in the Steward Observatory Mirror Laboratory at the University of Arizona. It was the first 6.5-meter mirror cast at SOML.
The new MMT was rededicated on
20 May 2000.
(External Link
)
In late 2002, a novel
deformable secondary mirror was added to the telescope.
(External Link) While other
adaptive optics designs do their corrections with additional mirrors, minimizing the number of warm surfaces in the light path produces better results in
infrared wavelengths.
Further Information
Get more info on 'Mmt Observatory'.
|
External Link Exchanges
Do you know how hard it is to get a link from a large encyclopaedia? Well we're different and will prove it. To get a link from us just add the following HTML to your site on a relevant page:
<a href="http://mmt_observatory.totallyexplained.com">MMT Observatory Totally Explained</a>
Then simply click through this link from your web page. Our crawlers will verify your link, extract the title of your web page and instantly add a link back to it. If you like you can remove the words Totally Explained and embed the link in article text.
As long as your link remains in place, we'll keep our link to you right here. Please play fair - our crawlers are watching. Your site must be closely related to this one's topic. Any kind of spamming, dubious practises or removing the link will result in your link from us being dropped and, potentially, your whole site being banned. |
