Aug 2026· Astronomical Telescopes + Instrumentation· Vol 14147, pp. 1414728 - 1414728-6· 0 citations· 7 references
Engineering
Abstract
The Multi-Aperture Spectroscopic Telescope (MAST) is an array of twenty 61 cm prime-focus telescopes designed to address the growing mismatch between the discovery rate of wide-field photometric surveys and the availability of efficient spectroscopic follow-up facilities. All telescopes are fiber-fed to two shared spectrographs — DeepSpec (R ≲ 1000, 365– 900nm) and HighSpec (R ∼ 20,000, narrow-band) — housed in a dedicated instrument room at the Weizmann Astrophysical Observatory (WAO), Negev, Israel. The combined collecting area is equivalent to a 2.7m single-aperture telescope at a fraction of the cost, and the array can operate either as a single large-aperture facility for faint targets or as a multiplexed system observing many bright targets simultaneously. We present the system design, hardware implementation, control architecture, and preliminary on-sky performance. Ten telescope units are currently installed and initial science operations are expected to commence at the beginning of 2027.
The Large Fiber Array Spectroscopic Telescope, a part of the Eric and Wendy Schmidt Observatory System (LFAST), is designing and building a new optical telescope composed of an array of small “unit telescopes”, which can be replicated economically and at scale to produce an arbitrarily large incoherent aperture. Our fi...
Chad F. Bender, J. P. Roger Angel, Zsombor Antal et al.· Astronomical Telescopes + In...· 0 citations
A combination of large collecting aperture telescopes and highly efficient high-resolution spectrometers is crucial for key cases in exoplanet science in particular the search for biomarkers. Here, we present a design study exploring high-resolution spectrometer concepts for the Large Fiber Array Spectroscopic Telescop...
Zsombor Antal, C. Schwab, J. Pember et al.· Astronomical Telescopes + In...· 3 citations
The Cherenkov Telescope Array Observatory (CTAO) is establishing two sites: in La Palma, Canary Islands, and Paranal, Chile, to observe gamma-ray sky from 0.03 to 300 TeV with high sensitivity and resolution. It involves 70 air Cherenkov telescopes of various sizes. Four 23-meter parabolic Large-Sized Telescopes (LSTs)...
G. Sironi, L. Proserpio, G. Pareschi et al.· Astronomical Telescopes + In...· 0 citations
We present the design, implementation, and initial performance of a highly multiplexed cryogenic superconducting detector readout system in the context of its deployment to the Simons Observatory large-aperture telescope (LAT). The Simons Observatory is a cosmic microwave background experiment located at 5,200 m in Chi...
T. Satterthwaite, T. Pinsonneault-Marotte, S. Henderson et al.· 0 citations
The Center for High Angular Resolution Astronomy (CHARA) Array is a six-element interferometer at Mount Wilson Observatory with baselines ranging from 34 to 331m. The Array hosts a number of new or upgraded, six-telescope beam combiners that span the spectrum from the visible R-band to the near-infrared K-band with a r...
D. Gies, G. Schaefer, N. Scott et al.· Astronomical Telescopes + In...· 0 citations
The Simons Observatory (SO) is a cosmic microwave background (CMB) survey experiment observing from an altitude of 5,200 m in the Atacama Desert in Chile. The SO Small Aperture Telescopes (SATs) will cover six spectral bands between 30 and 280 GHz primarily to search for evidence of primordial gravitational waves in th...
K. Harrington, R. Gerras, N. Galitzki et al.· 1 citation
We use cookies to run the site and, with your consent, for analytics and to show ads.
See our Cookie Policy.
