Design of Hardware Interface for the Otto Struve 2.1m Telescope

  • Published : 2009.10.15

Abstract

To search for the quasars at z > 7 in early universe, we are developing a optical camera which has a $1k\times1k$ deep depletion CCD chip, with later planned upgrade to HAWAII-2RG infrared array. We are going to attach the camera to the cassegrain focus of Otto Struve 2.1m telescope at McDonald observatory of University of Texas at Austin, USA. We present the design of a hardware interface to attach the CCD camera to the telescope. It consists of focal reducer, filter wheel, and guiding camera. Focal reducer is needed to reduce the long f-ratio (f/13.7) down to about 4 for wide field of view. The guiding camera design is based on that of DIAFI offset guider which developed for the McDonald 2.7m telescope.

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