The Principles of Astronomical Telescope Design

This book presents a complete summary of the author's twenty five years of experience in telescope design. It provides a general introduction to every aspect of telescope design. It also discusses the theory behind telescope design in depth, which makes it a good reference book for professionals.

Table of Contents.- Dedication.- Contributing Authors.- Preface of English edition.- Preface of Chinese edition.- Acknowledgments.- Fundamentals of Optical Telescopes.- A brief history of optical telescopes.- General astronomical requirements.- Angular resolution.- Light collecting power.- Field-of-view and combined efficiency.- Atmospheric windows and site selection.- Fundamentals of astronomical optics.- Optical systems for astronomical telescopes.- Aberrations and their calculations.- Formulas of telescope aberrations.- Field corrector design.- Ray tracing, spot diagram, and merit function.- Modern optical theory.- Optical transfer function.- Wave aberrations and modulation transfer function.- Wavefront error and the Strehl ratio.- Image spatial frequency.- Image property of a segmented mirror system.- References.- Mirror Design of Optical Telescopes.- Specifications for optical mirror design.- Fundamental requirements for optical mirrors.- Mirror surface error and support systems.- Surface error fitting and slope error expression.- Lightweight primary mirror design.- Significance of lightweight mirrors for telescopes.- Thin mirror design.- Honeycomb mirror design.- Multi-mirror telescopes.- Segmented mirror telescopes.- Metal and lightweight mirrors.- Mirror polishing and mirror supporting.- Material properties of optical mirrors.- Optical mirror polishing.- Vacuum coating.- Mirror support mechanisms.- Mirror seeing and stray light control.- Mirror seeing effect.- Stray light control.- References.- Telescope Structures and Control System.- Telescope mounting.- Equatorial mounting.- Altitude-azimuth mounting.- Stewart platform mounting telescope.- Fixed mirror or fixed altitude mountings.- Telescope tube and other structure design.- Specifications for telescope tube design.- Telescope tube design.- Support vane design for secondary mirror.- Telescope bearing design.- Structural static analysis.- Telescope drive and control.- Specifications of telescope drive system.- Trends in drive system design.- Encoder systems for telescopes.- Pointing error corrections.- Servo control and distributed intelligence.- Star guiding.- Structural dynamic analysis.- Wind and earthquake spectrums.- Dynamic simulation of telescope structures.- Combined structural and control simulation.- Structural vibration control.- Telescope foundation design.- References.- Advanced Techniques for Optical Telescopes.- Active and adaptive optics.- Basic principles of active and adaptive optics.- Wavefront sensors.- Actuators, deformable mirrors, phase correctors, and metrology system.- Active optical system and phasing sensors.- Curvature sensors and tip-tilt devices.- Atmosphere disturbance and adaptive optics compensation.- Artificial laser guide star and adaptive optics.- Atmosphere tomography and multi-conjugate adaptive optics.- Adaptive secondary mirror design.- Optical interferometers.- Speckle interferometer technique.- Michelson interferometer.- Fizeau interferometry.- Intensity interferometry.- Amplitude interferometer.- References.- Space Telescopes and Their Development.- Orbit environmental conditions.- Orbit definition.- Orbit thermal conditions.- Other orbit conditions.- Attitude control of space telescopes.- Attitude sensors.- Attitude actuators.- Space telescope projects.- Hubble Space Telescope.- James Webb Space Telescope.- Space Interferometry Mission and other space programs.- References.- Fundamentals of Radio Telescopes.- Brief history of radio telescopes.- Scientific requirements for radio telescopes.- Atmospheric radio windows and site selection.- Parameters of radio antennas.- Radiation pattern.- Antenna gain.- Antenna temperature and noise temperature.- Antenna efficiency.- Polarization properties.- Optical arrangement of radio antennas.- Characteristics of offset antennas.- Radio telescope receivers.- References.- Radio Telescope Design.- Antenna tolerance and homologous design.- Transmission loss of electromagnetic waves.- Ante