Abstract

The evaluation and control of atmospheric turbulence in the upper atmosphere and around the telescope environment are growing concerns, since these are the last limiting factors in improving the imaging quality of large ground based telescopes. The adaptive optics is naturally a recent topical dynamic approach to control the optical wavefront aberration using a real time servo system. Another line of pains-taking efforts have been made to improve the thermal environment more favorable to telescopes. They are, for example, 1) reducing the thermal mass and thermal time constant of mirrors, telescope structure, and dome structure, 2) removing unneseccary heat sources and cooling the dome against daylight heating, 3) flushing the trapped warm air inside the telescope enclosure, and so on.

© 1992 Optical Society of America