The terrestrial telescope

Response of the Molonglo Observatory Synthesis Telescope to Terrestrial Interference

In conjunction with the Australian Government’s Spectrum Management Agency, experimental tests have been carried out to determine the susceptibility of the Molonglo Observatory Synthesis Telescope (MOST) to interference from terrestrial transmitters. The motivation for the tests was to reconcile the conflicting requirements of the MOST, which is committed to an extensive survey of the southern ...

Measurements of the Diffuse Ultraviolet Background and the Terrestrial Airglow with the Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph1

Far-UV observations in and near the Hubble Deep Fields demonstrate that the Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph (STIS) can potentially obtain unique and precise measurements of the diffuse far-ultraviolet background. Although STIS is not the ideal instrument for such measurements, high-resolution images allow Galactic and extragalactic objects to be masked to very faint magnitudes, thus ensuri...

Source Telescope Source Telescope

Phase-Induced Amplitude Apodization of Telescope Pupils for Extrasolar Terrestrial Planet Imaging

In this paper, an alternative to the classical pupil apodization techniques (use of an amplitude pupil mask) is proposed. It is shown that an apodized pupil suitable for imaging of Extrasolar planets can be obtained by reflection of an unapodized flat wavefront on 2 mirrors. By carefully choosing the shape of these 2 mirrors, it is possible to obtain a contrast better than 109 at a distance sma...

Application of a Large Space-Based Diffractive Optical Element Telescope to the Terrestrial Planet-Finder Mission: Design and Tolerance Issues

An analytical description of the scattered light from a 10 meter diameter Diffractive Optical Element lens-based telescope operating at 1 micron wavelength has been formulated. The specifics of the grating and blaze as well as physical manufacturing constraints were made a part of the problem to be solved. A major simplifying approximation made is that a 1 dimensional lens was assumed for the c...