Related papers: Liquid Mirror Telescopes: A progress report

The most pressing problems in modern astrophysics have often required the largest telescopes. With the cost scaling of mirror diameters, the field as a whole is faced with a challenge -- how to replicate or improve on the collecting area…

The Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST) is conceived as an 8.4-m telescope with CCD or CMOS focal plane covering most of a field 0.6 m in diameter, the latter exceeding the size of the largest photographic plates ever used in astronomy.…

Weak gravitational lensing enables direct reconstruction of dark matter maps over cosmologically significant volumes. This research is currently telescope-limited. The Dark Matter Telescope (DMT) is a proposed 8.4 m telescope with a 3…

Demand for lightweight, highly reflective and mechanically compliant mirrors for optics experiments has seen a significant surge. In this aspect, photonic crystal (PhC) membranes are ideal alternatives to conventional mirrors, as they…

We present the research status of a deformable mirror made of a magnetic liquid whose surface is actuated by a triangular array of small current carrying coils. We demonstrate that the mirror can correct a 11 microns low order aberrated…

(Abridged) We consider the scientific case for a large aperture (10-12m class) optical spectroscopic survey telescope with a field of view comparable to that of LSST. Such a facility could enable transformational progress in several areas…

The Visible and Infrared Survey Telescope for Astronomy (VISTA) is the 4-metre wide-field survey telescope at ESO's Paranal Observatory, equipped with the world's largest near-infrared imaging camera (VISTA IR Camera, VIRCAM), with 1.65…

The Large Binocular Telescope (LBT) is a world-leading astronomical observatory, where the italian partnership has played an important role in increasing the telescope's productivity, both through an optimized observing strategy and through…

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…

We propose the segmented Large Millimeter Telescope (LMT/GTM),as the largest spatial light modulator capable of producing vortex beams of integer topological charge. This observing mode could be applied for direct exoplanet searches in the…

Technological advances will allow the placement of many Terahertz detectors at the focal plane of a single telescope. For a telescope of a given diameter and wavelength of operation, there is a limit to the number of usable detectors…

Sensitivity and resolution of space telescopes are directly related to the size of the primary mirror. Enabling such future extremely large space telescopes or even arrays of those will require to drastically reduce the areal weight of the…

Submillimeter and millimeter wavelengths provide a unique view of the Universe, from the gas and dust that fills and surrounds galaxies to the chromosphere of our own Sun. Current single-dish facilities have presented a tantalising view of…

MUSCAT is a large format mm-wave camera scheduled for installation on the Large Millimeter Telescope Alfonso Serrano (LMT) in 2018. The MUSCAT focal plane is based on an array of horn coupled lumped-element kinetic inductance detectors…

Imaging Atmospheric Cherenkov Telescopes for very-high energy gamma-ray astronomy need mirror with high reflectance roughly in the wavelength between 300 and 550 nm. The current standard reflective layer of such mirrors is aluminum. Being…

The Large Binocular Telescope Interferometer is a high contrast imager and interferometer that sits at the combined bent Gregorian focus of the LBT's dual 8.4~m apertures. The interferometric science drivers dictate 0.1'' resolution with…

In this paper, I discuss the capabilities and limitations of an 8-10 meter ultraviolet/optical telescope in space, the proposed successor to the Hubble Space Telescope, in the context of galaxy studies. The exquisite spatial resolution and…

Carbon fibre composite technology for lightweight mirrors is gaining increasing interest in the space- and ground-based astronomical communities for its low weight, ease of manufacturing, excellent thermal qualities and robustness. We…

The new 1.5~m telescope (AZ1500) is operating at the National Astronomical Observatory Rozhen, Bulgaria. This paper gives an overview of the telescope and presents a snapshot of the current performance. Science observations are under way,…

We report the results of a recent search for the lowest value of thermal noise that can be achieved in LIGO by changing the shape of mirrors, while fixing the mirror radius and maintaining a low diffractional loss. The result of this…