High-precision pointing with the Sardinia Radio Telescope

Sergio Poppi; Claudio Pernechele; Tonino Pisanu; Marco Morsiani

doi:10.1117/12.856584

28 July 2010 High-precision pointing with the Sardinia Radio Telescope

Sergio Poppi, Claudio Pernechele, Tonino Pisanu, Marco Morsiani

Proceedings Volume 7733, Ground-based and Airborne Telescopes III; 773316 (2010) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.856584
Event: SPIE Astronomical Telescopes + Instrumentation, 2010, San Diego, California, United States

Abstract

We present here the systems aimed to measure and minimize the pointing errors for the Sardinia Radio Telescope: they consist of an optical telescope to measure errors due to the mechanical structure deformations and a lasers system for the errors due to the subreflector displacement. We show here the results of the tests that we have done on the Medicina 32 meters VLBI radio telescope. The measurements demonstrate we can measure the pointing errors of the mechanical structure, with an accuracy of about ~1 arcsec. Moreover, we show the technique to measure the displacement of the subreflector, placed in the SRT at 22 meters from the main mirror, within ±0.1 mm from its optimal position. These measurements show that we can obtain the needed accuracy to correct also the non repeatable pointing errors, which arise on time scale varying from seconds to minutes.

Citation Download Citation

Sergio Poppi, Claudio Pernechele, Tonino Pisanu, and Marco Morsiani "High-precision pointing with the Sardinia Radio Telescope", Proc. SPIE 7733, Ground-based and Airborne Telescopes III, 773316 (28 July 2010); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.856584

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