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The MORFEO optical system, key to the Extremely Large Telescope (ELT), will revolutionize astronomical imaging by relaying the ELT's focal plane to MICADO using a blend of static and deformable optics. Aligning and recollimating MORFEO, with its complex 1-meter free-form, deformable, and spherical mirrors, especially during ELT's installation, involves a variety of techniques and specialized tools like Coordinate Measurement Machines (CMMs) and Laser Trackers. Continuous alignment adjustments are crucial to manage thermal variations at the observatory.In the context of a national basic physics grant, the development of a 1:1 scale paraxial prototype of MOR-FEO is proposed to test alignment techniques using a micro-alignment telescope. This includes validating the alignment with laser trackers, overseen by an interferometric metrological system using etalon absolute multiline (frequency scanning interferometry -FSI). The primary aim of this project is to investigate advanced alignment techniques for next-generation astronomical instruments, which will subsequently be tested to validate the alignment procedures of MORFEO (Multiconjugate adaptive Optics For ELT Observations). The prototype will be assembled in the Bologna Integration Hall before MORFEO's Final Design Review, ensuring validation of the alignment process, preemptively resolving alignment issues, and defining the specifications for the dedicated optical alignment laboratory.
The MORFEO optical system, key to the Extremely Large Telescope (ELT), will revolutionize astronomical imaging by relaying the ELT's focal plane to MICADO using a blend of static and deformable optics. Aligning and recollimating MORFEO, with its complex 1-meter free-form, deformable, and spherical mirrors, especially during ELT's installation, involves a variety of techniques and specialized tools like Coordinate Measurement Machines (CMMs) and Laser Trackers. Continuous alignment adjustments are crucial to manage thermal variations at the observatory.In the context of a national basic physics grant, the development of a 1:1 scale paraxial prototype of MOR-FEO is proposed to test alignment techniques using a micro-alignment telescope. This includes validating the alignment with laser trackers, overseen by an interferometric metrological system using etalon absolute multiline (frequency scanning interferometry -FSI). The primary aim of this project is to investigate advanced alignment techniques for next-generation astronomical instruments, which will subsequently be tested to validate the alignment procedures of MORFEO (Multiconjugate adaptive Optics For ELT Observations). The prototype will be assembled in the Bologna Integration Hall before MORFEO's Final Design Review, ensuring validation of the alignment process, preemptively resolving alignment issues, and defining the specifications for the dedicated optical alignment laboratory.
The road to increasingly more challenging and bigger systems in astronomy is resulting in as much bigger challenges to the safety for people and things. As well for the ELT (Extremely Large Telescope) instrumentation and modules, these big "systems" collaborate and share the same environment and spaces, and, as for the AO module MORFEO (Multi-conjugate adaptive Optics Relay For ELT Observations) and the MICADO camera (Multi-AO Imaging Camera for Deep Observations), some subsystems are strongly embedded, even if they are designed by different consortia. Therefore, the designers are thinking to even more sophisticated systems to assure the safety and communication of information between the different instruments. In this context, the MORFEO consortium is investigating on the possibility to use industrial safety modules, architecturally integrated in the overall control system. This approach can highly help in the fulfilling of even more complex requirements with the high flexibility required to grant the possibility, during the telescope life, of one or more upgrading of the instrumentation and their way to co-operate. The paper goes through a comparison between the in-house designed safety solution, widely used in the past, and the industrial safety systems and the implementation of these technologies in the ground-based astronomy.
In the framework of STILES PNRR Project and as a natural evolution of the INAF Minigrant project on the Integrated approach to the mechanical design for Astronomical Instrumentation, an advanced mechanical engineering laboratory inside the INAF -Observatory of Naples was funded. This facility represents a leap forward in technological research applied to design and development of Ground-based Telescope Instrumentation for the researchers who will use these innovative technologies. The role of the new laboratory for mechanical engineering, in the INAF context, is essentially to support the advanced design, develop prototypes with different Additive Manufacturing 3D printers, maintain state-of-theart for astronomical instruments and equipment and revamp/retrofit the existent facilities utilizing also the Reverse Engineering approach. The real innovation of this laboratory is represented by the technologies and techniques that will be implemented inside of it. Another focus is on Metrology applied to characterize, control and accept the mechanical items designed with 3D CAD software and validated by FEA approach during the design phase. The synergy between these disciplines promises to improve the scientific collaboration and the technological expertise for INAF researchers of Naples. Mechanical engineering is the backbone of the astronomical facilities, always bigger than previous one, and enable astronomers to make groundbreaking discoveries and expand our knowledge of space.
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