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As telescopes get larger, the size of a seeing-limited spectrograph for a given resolving power becomes larger also, and for ELTs the size will be so great that high resolution instruments of simple design will be infeasible. Solutions…
Capturing high resolution imagery of the Earth's surface often calls for a telescope of considerable size, even from Low Earth Orbits (LEO). A large aperture often requires large and expensive platforms. For instance, achieving a resolution…
The next generation of Extremely Large Telescopes (ELT), with diameters up to 39 meters, will start opera- tion in the next decade and promises new challenges in the development of instruments. The growing field of astrophotonics (the use…
Photonic lanterns (PLs) are tapered waveguides that gradually transition from a multi-mode fiber geometry to a bundle of single-mode fibers. In astronomical applications, PLs can efficiently couple multi-mode telescope light into a…
We describe the optimum telescope focal ratio for a two-element, three surface, telecentric image-transfer microlens-to-fiber coupled integral field unit within the constraints imposed by micro-optics fabrication and optical aberrations. We…
A new generation of telescopes with mirror diameters of 20 m or more, called extremely large telescopes (ELTs) has the potential to provide unprecedented imaging and spectroscopy of exo-planetary systems, if the difficulties in achieving…
The next generation of Extremely Large Telescopes (ELT), with diameters up to 39 meters, is planned to begin operation in the next decade and promises new challenges in the development of instruments since the instrument size increases in…
We explore the use of remapping techniques to improve the efficiency of highly-multiplexed fibre systems for astronomical spectroscopy. This is particularly important for the implementation of Diverse Field Spectroscopy (DFS, described in…
I argue that there is a crisis in optical Astronomy due to a paucity of telescopes and thus the need for a paradigm shift in telescope technology. Large increases in collecting areas and observing time/astronomer are only possible if we…
In astronomy, multi-object spectrographs employ fibre positioning robots to couple the light from multiple astronomy sources (stars or galaxies) into multiple multi-mode fibres, which are distributed across the focal plane of the telescope.…
The fields of Astronomy and Astrophysics are technology limited, where the advent and application of new technologies to astronomy usher in a flood of discoveries altering our understanding of the Universe (e.g., recent cases include LIGO…
One of the problems of producing spectrographs for Extremely Large Telescopes (ELTs) is that the beam size is required to scale with telescope aperture if all other parameters are held constant, leading to enormous size and implied cost.…
The coupling of large telescopes to astronomical instruments has historically been challenging due to the tension between instrument throughput and stability. Light from the telescope can either be injected wholesale into the instrument,…
Recent advancements in low-cost astronomical equipment, including high-quality medium-aperture telescopes and low-noise CMOS detectors, have made the deployment of large optical telescope arrays both financially feasible and scientifically…
Next generation probes of dark matter and dark energy require high precision reconstruction of faint galaxy shapes from hundreds of dithered exposures. Current practice is to stack the images. While valuable for many applications, this…
As telescope apertures increase, the challenge of scaling spectrographic astronomical instruments becomes acute. The next generation of extremely large telescopes (ELTs) strain the availability of glass blanks for optics and engineering to…
In fiber-based spectroscopy within telescopes, a prevailing limitation has been the necessity to align the fiber diameter with the telescope's seeing conditions, often characterized by the Full Width at Half Maximum of the point spread…
Photonic technologies offer numerous advantages for astronomical instruments such as spectrographs and interferometers owing to their small footprints and diverse range of functionalities. Operating at the diffraction-limit, it is…
Optical beams and starlight distorted by atmospheric turbulence can be corrected with adaptive optics systems to enable efficient coupling into single-mode fibers. Deformable mirrors, used to flatten the wavefront in astronomical…
The next generations of ground-based cosmic microwave background experiments will require polarisation sensitive, multichroic pixels of large focal planes comprising several thousand detectors operating at the photon noise limit. One…