| Name: | TASHI THSERING |
| Affiliation: | Indian Institute of Astrophysics, Bangalore |
| Conference ID : | ASI2023_149 |
| Title : | Development of a moderate size Direct Drive based Alt-Azimuth Telescope. |
| Authors : | Tashi Thsering Mahay, Padma Dorjay, Tsewang Stanzin, Padmakar Singh Parihar, Dorje Angchuk, Tarun Kumar Sharma, Kemkar P.M.M, Tsewang Dorjai, Sonam Jorphel, Tsewang Gyaltson, Phunchok Dorjay, Tsewang Phunchok, Tashi Pamber. |
| Mode of Presentation: | Poster |
| Abstract Category : | Instrumentation and Techniques |
| Abstract : | An Alt-Az Telescope of moderate size which can handle up to 24” optics is developed at IIA with aim to operate the MASS-DIMM instrument to characterize IAO Hanle site for large optical-NIR telescope project. MASS-DIMM is an instrument which provides atmospheric seeing and turbulence profile simultaneously. Since, the MASS-DIMM device require a very sturdy telescope to work in windy condition, we have designed and developed our own Alt-Az mount telescope and is now installed at IAO Hanle site. A direct drive technology is used for driving the main axes, which provides high stiffness and fast dynamic response. Two identical ETEL make high torque motors (model #TMLO210-070-3TBS) are directly attached to the altitude and azimuth axes of the telescope and driven by a digital servo drives from Kollmorgen, (model #S72462) . High resolution Renishaw optical encoder is used for position feedback to operate the axis in a closed loop. The top layer of the hardware is a Parker multi axis controller (PAC320) compatible with PLC programming language (IEC-61131-3) . A telescope control software (TCS) working in the Linux platform is developed in C++/QT. The controller communicates with Drives and IO cards through EtherCAT protocol and with the TCS through OPC-UA server-client architecture over Ethernet. The optics is off-the-shelf 16” RC F/8 from TPO, which uses CFRP trusses and hence subjected to minimum wind induced disturbances. Initial sky testing carried out at IAO indicates that indeed telescope meets requirement of very high pointing and tracking performances. Whereas, the wind rejection related studies which is another key requirement of the telescope, yet to be carried out. In this presentation we provide a detailed description of the telescope design, development, software as well as preliminary performances test results. |
