A one meter class eye for PLATO
- Paper number
IAC-14,A7,2,1,x27334
- Author
Dr. Roberto Ragazzoni, Italy
- Year
2014
- Abstract
PLATO being selected as a Medium Size mission of ESA, is conceived as an optical observatory that will continuously look almost ininteruptly for several years into a gigantic area in the sky with high enough SNR to achieve detection of Earth-twins extra Solar system. In order to achieve such a goal a one meter class telescope with an equivalent focal length of the order of a fifth of such a length is required. This is accomplisehd through a set of 34 refractory very wide field objectives that retain their high quality onto several large format CCDs.This approach has a number of advantageous including very high dynamic range and multiplexity allowing for very strong reliability at system level. The technical development that allowed to achieve such performances is traced out involving the use of aspheric surfaces and large size non conventional optical materials, with a strong emphasys on the ability to produce, assemble and align such a small scale mass production within times.
- Abstract document
- Manuscript document
IAC-14,A7,2,1,x27334.pdf (🔒 authorized access only).
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