The New Initiatives Office
- a partnership between Gemini, NOAO and our
Communities
AURA’s road map to future 30m - 100m
groundbased observatories
- entering the “era of the Giants” in
partnership
DRAFT – first thoughts (12/18/00)
abbreviated version
DRAFT (12/18/00)
AURA’s “New Initiative Office”
- a New Initiative for Groundbased Astronomy
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•
•
•
Global context
Science Drivers (highly abbreviated in this version)
Organizing for success in partnership
Focusing on Innovation
DRAFT (12/18/00)
Global context
2000
Keck I&II Keck-Inter.
ESO-VLTI
UT1,UT2,UT3,UT4
Gemini N&S
HET
LBT
2010
NGST
ALMA SIM
VLA-upgrade
LSST?
CELT and maybe
NIO timeline
2000
GSMT…
Phase A: of what?
2008
The decade of adaptive optics
2010
OWL
2015
The era of the “giants”
DRAFT (12/18/00)
How we will be competitive from the ground
• The “Next Generation” Space Telescope
(NGST) will probably launch 2006 - 2010
– an 6m - 8m telescope in space
• NGST will be extremely competitive for:
– deep infrared imaging,
– spectroscopy at wavelengths longer than 3 microns
• Groundbased telescopes can still compete in
the optical and near-infrared
– moderate to high resolution spectroscopy
• Groundbased facilities can also exploit large
baselines
– high angular resolution observations
DRAFT (12/18/00)
“Deconstructing High z Galaxies”
Integral field
observations of a
z = 1.355 irregular
HDF galaxy
(Ellis et al)
“Starformation histories
of physically distinct
components apparently
vary - dynamical data is
essential”
-- this is very hard on
8m – 10m telescopes
DRAFT (12/18/00)
Going beyond Gemini
Solar System @ 10 pc
Jupiter
500 mas
x 30
Gilmozzi et al (1998)
Gemini
10 s, t = 10,000s
R = 1800
l (mm)
Models for 1 MJ Planets at 10 pc from Burrows et al 1997
DRAFT (12/18/00)
Going beyond 0.1 arcsecond astronomy requires
resolution and sensitivity
Observations at z = 2 - 5
1 AU
1R
100 AU
Accretion Disks
Protoplanetary
Disks
1 - 10 milliarcseconds
0.1 pc
Molecular
Cloud
Cores
Jets/HH
10 pc
Mol. Outflows
Flux
100 pc
GMC
AGN
Planets
Spectroscopy

Imaging
Stellar
Clusters
10 AU
Galactic observations out to
1kpc at 10 mas resolution
DRAFT (12/18/00)
New Frontiers: Galaxies
Dense sampling over large fields of view:
Depth: to reach z=0.5-10
for dense sampling
Capabilities
Large aperture Telescope
Large FOV (>20’)
O/IR MOS at R~5000
DRAFT (12/18/00)
Why a wide field
Sensitivity + FOV*
Large Scale Structure
100Mpc (5Ox5O), 27AB mag (L* z=9), dense sampling
NBT
1.5 yr
Gemini
50 yr
NGST
140 yr
*uniqueness cf. ESO 100m OWL
DRAFT (12/18/00)
The NIO – organizing for success
in partnership
External
resources
AURA
Steering Committee:
Pres. AURA
Dir. Gemini
Dir. NOAO
Another (S.Strom)
Resources
NIO Advisory
Committee
Resources
NIO Office
Gemini
PM: J. Oschmann
PS: (TBD)
NIO staff
(allocated FTE’s)
Working
Groups
NOAO
Study
Contracts
DRAFT (12/18/00)
Baseline Approach
- ambitious at the outset
• Diffraction limited telescope D ~ 30m - 100m
• Operating wavelengths
Tech. challenge
0.9mm
-
3.8mm
Science challenge
• Corrected Field of View
Science challenge
1 arcmin - 3 arcmin
• Uncorrected FOV
Tech. challenge
Tech. challenge
10 - 20 arcmins
• Minimize risk -- if at all possible
• Focus on technologies that have the potential to produce the
most innovative results
• Multi-conjugate AO
• Smart structures
• Optical materials and support approaches
• Analytical analysis of wind-buffeting
• “Cheap” enclosures
DRAFT (12/18/00)
New Initiative’s Office, a partnership between
Gemini, NOAO and our Communities
• Working Groups • Issues
–
–
–
–
–
Science
Systems
Adaptive Optics
Optics
Structures and
Controls
– Sites
– Instrumentation
– Management
– Corrected vs. uncorrected FOV
– Error Budget, Complexity
– Strehl ratio vs. FOV vs. No.
lasers
– Cost of aspheric vs. spherical M1
– Wind buffeting analysis, the role
of smart structures
– Mauna Kea vs. Chajnantor
– Narrow vs. Wide field, detectors
– National vs. International
DRAFT (12/18/00)
support
Possible Concept
• A “radio telescope” married to active and
adaptive optics
Three levels of figure
control:
Mirror-to-cell actuators
Integrated mirror/cell segment
Large stroke actuators
Mirror support truss
with smart structure
elements/active damping
as needed
• Each mirror segment
is controlled within
an individual cell
• Each cell is then
controlled with respect
to the primary mirror
support structure
• The support structure
may have to use “smart
structure” technology
to maintain sufficient
shape and/or damping
for slewing/tracking
DRAFT (12/18/00)
A proposed approach to achieving the
image quality science goals
Deformable M2 : First
stage MCAO, wide field
seeing improvement and
M1 shape control
Active primary
(0.1Hz)?
10-20’ Field at
0.2-0.3” seeing
LGSs provide full S.C.
• Wide and narrow field science
multiplexing
• M2: rather slow, large stroke
DM to compensate ground layer
and telescope figure, or to use
as single DM at l>3 mm. (~20000
act)
• Dedicated, small field (1-2’)
MCAO system (~4-6DMs).
1-2’ field fed to the
MCAO module
Focal plane
DRAFT (12/18/00)
How do we cost a 30 - 100m?
Risk assessment examples 1 of 3
• Adaptive Optics
– multiple-conjugate AO needs to be demonstrated
– requires a laser solution
– deformable mirror technology needs to expanded for 50m ( x
10 - 20 more actuators
• How do we make “light-weight”, 2 - 4m aspheric
segment mounted in its own active cell and can we
afford hundreds of them?
• How much dynamic range do we need to control cellsegment to cell-segment alignment ?
 Will “smart”, and/or active damping systems have to be
used telescope
 evaluate by analysis and test.
 Composites or Steel?
DRAFT (12/18/00)
An Enclosure for 50m -- “how big?”
Risk assessment examples 2 of 3
75m
150m
75m
30 degrees
150m
• Restrict observing range to airmasses < 2.0
• “Astro-dome” approach
• Heretical proposition #1 - excavate
– significantly lowers enclosure cost
– further shields telescope from wind
– reliant on AO to correct boundary layer
• Heretical proposition #2 - perhaps the wind characteristics of
a site are now more important than the seeing characteristics
DRAFT (12/18/00)
Risk assessment examples 3 of 3
 Telescope Structure and wind loading
 We need to characterize this loading in a way that is relatively easy to use
in finite element analysis. This is easy, but mathematically intensive.
Basically for each node that gets a wind force, a full vector of force cross
spectra is generated, therefore the force matrix is a full matrix with an
order equal to the number of forces (10’s of thousands).
 Enclosure concept (do we need one)?
 What concept can we afford both in terms of dollars/euros and
environmental impact (note Heretical Proposition #2)
PROBABLE CONCLUSION: WE NEED A
TECHNOLOGY TEST-BED
 a 20m - 30m “new technology telescope”
 this is probably to only way to establish a credible cost for a
50m - 100m diffraction limited optical/IR groundbased
telescope
DRAFT (12/18/00)
New Initiative’s Office, a partnership between
Gemini, NOAO and our Communities
• Working Groups
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
Science
Systems
Adaptive Optics
Optics
Structures and Controls
Sites
Instrumentation
Management
Preliminary reports
in draft form,
community meetings
and first design studies
underway
- Strategy Document
by June 2001
DRAFT (12/18/00)
DRAFT (12/18/00)