Previous Article
Next Article
Table of Contents

The WIYN Report: Progress on the New 3.5-m Telescope (1Dec92)
(from KPNO, NOAO Newsletter No. 32, 1 December 1992)

Construction of the WIYN enclosure is nearing completion approximately
three months ahead of schedule. The control building is finished, and
exterior panels are being installed on the telescope enclosure. Work
remains on the enclosure building, and the electrical and mechanical
systems need to be connected and tested. Once construction of the
enclosure building and control building are complete, the WIYN staff
will prepare the building for the arrival of the telescope mount and
installation of the control system during the spring and summer. We are
obviously pleased at the anticipated timely completion of the
construction!

The fabrication of the telescope mount is in full swing at L&F
Industries in California. Once the telescope mount is assembled, the
motion of the axes and the operation of the various subsystems will be
tested, using dummy weights in lieu of the primary, secondary and
tertiary mirror assemblies. Following the tests, the mount will be
disassembled and shipped to Kitt Peak for installation starting in
April.

The 3.5-m primary mirror, cast at the Steward Observatory Mirror
Laboratory, has returned there for aspherizing and polishing. They are
fine grinding the surface of the mirror into the proper asphere and
will begin polishing soon.  The mirror should be completed by the end
of April. More details on the status of the primary can be found in the
following article. Once the mirror is returned, NOAO will complete
fabrication, installation and testing of the final mirror cell,
supports, and thermal control system in time for installation in the
telescope in October.

Work on the other optics for the WIYN telescope is also progressing.
Contraves has received the secondary mirror blank at its facility in
Pennsylvania and is preparing to generate the surface. The mirror will
be polished and tested using the 100 inch Hindel sphere on loan from
NOAO. The contract for polishing the tertiary mirror has been awarded
to Kodak, and the mirror blank will be shipped to them in November. The
optical design for the wide-field corrector is being optimized, and
WIYN will soon request bids for the fused silica blanks and optical
fabrication.

A critical design review of the telescope control system was held in
early October at the University of Wisconsin.  Fabrication of the
system is getting underway, and installation of the control system in
the observatory is expected next summer.

Two "facility" instruments are being planned for early use at the WIYN
Observatory. NOAO has detailed its plans to move the Hydra fiber
positioner and the Bench Spectrograph from the 4-m to the WIYN
telescope during the summer of 1994. The design of a CCD imager for the
other Nasmyth focus is underway at Indiana University. NOAO expects to
supply a "mini-mosaic" CCD detector with 4096 x 4096 pixels for use in
the imager.

Plans for the commissioning and early operations phases of the
telescope are being developed for discussion with the WIYN Board of
Directors during the next year.

Matt Johns, Caty Pilachowski

Previous Article
Next Article
Table of Contents