ICRC2015

Construction of a Schwarzschild-Couder telescope as a candidate for the Cherenkov Telescope Array: Implementation of the optical system

1 Aug 2015, 15:30

1h

Mississippi Foyer (World Forum)

Board: 83

Poster contribution GA-IN Poster 2 GA

Speaker

Mr Andriy Petrashyk (Columbia University)

Description

We present the final optical system design of the prototype Schwarzschild-Couder telescope (pSCT), for which construction is scheduled to begin in early fall at the Fred Lawrence Whipple Observatory in southern Arizona, USA. The Schwarzschild-Couder telescope is a candidate for a future extension of the Cherenkov Telescope Array. This novel aplanatic optical system design is made of two aspheric mirrors. The primary mirror has 48 large (~1 m$^2$) mirror panels for an aperture of 9.6 m, while the secondary, made of 24 panels, has an aperture of 5.4 m. The resulting PSF is expected to be around 5 arcmin, which corresponds to a physical size of 8 mm on the focal plane. This represents a challenge for the fabrication of inexpensive aspheric mirror panels and for the precise alignment of the optical system as well as for the stability of the optical support structure. In this submission we introduce the design of the Schwarzschild-Couder optical system and describe the solutions adopted for the manufacturing of the mirror panels and their assembly on the optical support structure.