The wide field upgrade for the Hobby-Eberly Telescope

Booth, John A.; MacQueen, Phillip J.; Good, John M.; Wesley, Gordon L.; Hill, Gary J.; Palunas, Povilas; Segura, Pedro R.; Calder, Robert

doi:10.1117/12.672694

Cited by 18 publications

(12 citation statements)

References 15 publications

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“…The partitioning of the upgraded tracker system is a product of several design influences. This new version of the tracker will effectively be the third-generation of the tracker device 6 . The first was designed and constructed for the HET which entered service in the late 1990's.…”

Section: Tracker Design Participantsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Collaborative engineering and design management for the Hobby-Eberly Telescope tracker upgrade

et al. 2010

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The engineering and design of systems as complex as the Hobby-Eberly Telescope's* new tracker require that multiple tasks be executed in parallel and overlapping efforts. When the design of individual subsystems is distributed among multiple organizations, teams, and individuals, challenges can arise with respect to managing design productivity and coordinating successful collaborative exchanges. This paper focuses on design management issues and current practices for the tracker design portion of the Hobby-Eberly Telescope Wide Field Upgrade project. The scope of the tracker upgrade requires engineering contributions and input from numerous fields including optics, instrumentation, electromechanics, software controls engineering, and site-operations. Successful system-level integration of tracker subsystems and interfaces is critical to the telescope's ultimate performance in astronomical observation. Software and process controls for design information and workflow management have been implemented to assist the collaborative transfer of tracker design data. The tracker system architecture and selection of subsystem interfaces has also proven to be a determining factor in design task formulation and team communication needs. Interface controls and requirements change controls will be discussed, and critical team interactions are recounted (a group-participation Failure Modes and Effects Analysis [FMEA] is one of special interest). This paper will be of interest to engineers, designers, and managers engaging in multi-disciplinary and parallel engineering projects that require coordination among multiple individuals, teams, and organizations.

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Section: Tracker Design Participantsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Collaborative engineering and design management for the Hobby-Eberly Telescope tracker upgrade

et al. 2010

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“…4,7,8 Since then a variety of projects 9,10,11,12 were completed to improve image quality. This included development of MARS, SAMS, DMI and TTCAM, as well as improvements to the dome ventilation system.…”

Section: Het Current Statusmentioning

confidence: 99%

Current status of the Hobby-Eberly Telescope wide field upgrade and VIRUS

et al. 2008

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The Hobby-Eberly Telescope (HET) is an innovative large telescope of 9.2 meter aperture, located in West Texas at the McDonald Observatory. The HET operates with a fixed segmented primary and has a tracker which moves the fourmirror corrector and prime focus instrument package to track the sidereal and non-sidereal motions of objects. A major upgrade of the HET is in progress that will substantially increase the field of view by replacing the corrector, tracker and prime focus instrument package. In addition to supporting the existing suite of instruments, this wide field upgrade will feed a revolutionary new integral field spectrograph called VIRUS, in support of the Hobby-Eberly Telescope Dark Energy Experiment (HETDEX). This paper discusses the current status of this upgrade.

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“…The telescope is currently undergoing a major upgrade in support of the HET Dark Energy Experiment (HETDEX) 3,5,6 . This upgrade will consist of replacing the current spherical aberration corrector (SAC) with a wide field corrector (WFC) as well as a new PFIP and tracker 3 .…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This upgrade will consist of replacing the current spherical aberration corrector (SAC) with a wide field corrector (WFC) as well as a new PFIP and tracker 3 . These improvements, referred to as the Wide Field Upgrade (WFU), will increase the field of view from 4 arcminutes to 22 arcminutes and feed an array of up to 192 new spectrographs collectively referred to as the Variable Integral-field Replicable Unit Spectrograph (VIRUS) 5,6,7 . These upgrades will allow for simultaneous observation of celestial objects and promote the first wide-area surveys of the emission-line universe ever conducted 3 .…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Wind loading analysis and strategy for deflection reduction on HET wide field upgrade

et al. 2010

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Wind loading can be a detrimental source of vibration and deflection for any large terrestrial optical telescope. The Hobby-Eberly Telescope * (HET) in the Davis Mountains of West Texas is undergoing a Wide Field Upgrade (WFU) in support of the Dark Energy Experiment ‡ (HETDEX) that will greatly increase the size of the instrumentation subjected to operating wind speeds of up to 20.1 m/s (45 mph). A non-trivial consideration for this telescope (or others) is to quantify the wind loads and resulting deflections of telescope structures induced under normal operating conditions so that appropriate design changes can be made. A quasi-static computational fluid dynamics (CFD) model was generated using wind speeds collected on-site as inputs to characterize dynamic wind forces on telescope structures under various conditions. The CFD model was refined until predicted wind speed and direction inside the dome agreed with experimental data. The dynamic wind forces were then used in static loading analysis to determine maximum deflections under typical operating conditions. This approach also allows for exploration of operating parameters without impact to the observation schedule of the telescope. With optimum combinations of parameters (i.e. dome orientation, tracker position, and louver deployment), deflections due to current wind conditions can be significantly reduced. Furthermore, the upper limit for operating wind speed could be increased, provided these parameters are monitored closely. This translates into increased image quality and observing time.

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The wide field upgrade for the Hobby-Eberly Telescope

Cited by 18 publications

References 15 publications

Collaborative engineering and design management for the Hobby-Eberly Telescope tracker upgrade

Collaborative engineering and design management for the Hobby-Eberly Telescope tracker upgrade

Current status of the Hobby-Eberly Telescope wide field upgrade and VIRUS

Wind loading analysis and strategy for deflection reduction on HET wide field upgrade

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