INNOVATION July-August 2018

F E A T U R E

The telescope, 10,000 times more powerful today than it was in 1918 thanks to technology upgrades, was Canada’s first contribution to the design and operation of large telescopes that have significantly expanded humankind’s understanding of the universe. Canada has since collaborated with many other countries on leading-edge telescopes—in Hawaii and Chile, and has projects in the works for South Africa, Australia and elsewhere. That experience and reputation in astronomy rests on a foundation of engineering excellence. The BC engineers working on Canada’s telescope projects are known in the global astronomy community for continually pushing the boundaries of what is technologically possible, and for helping Canadian scientists peer ever-deeper into space and time towards the universe’s beginnings. Engineers from many disciplines and fields—optical, structural, mechanical, electrical, software, and more—are designing sophisticated technologies to include in the next generation of both optical and radio telescopes. Here, we present three projects that highlight telescope technologies that BC’s engineers are currently developing to keep Canada at the forefront of astronomical and astrophysical research. TELESCOPE-ENCLOSURE ENGINEERING Two key factors drive the design of the buildings that house large telescopes, says David Halliday, P.Eng., CEO of Dynamic

Optics. “The enclosure must protect the telescope, and it must make the telescope believe that the enclosure isn’t there—that the telescope is sitting out in the open.” Dynamic Structures is designing the enclosure for the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT), one of two key components that Canadian engineers are contributing to the five-country international telescope project. The TMT belongs to a new class of extremely large telescopes that will allow us to see deeper into space and observe cosmic objects with unprecedented sensitivity. With its 30-metre, segmented primary mirror, the TMT will enable new observational opportunities in essentially every field of astronomy and astrophysics. A well-designed telescope enclosure protects a telescope’s costly, sensitive optics and instruments from the extreme environments of high mountaintops, where modern optical telescopes are located. It also smooths airflow around the telescope to minimize turbulence and the mixing of different air temperatures that can cause the starlight to distort optically, which compromises the telescope’s scientific results. In addition, a well-designed enclosure minimizes telescope shaking—often caused by wind, surrounding activity, or the mechanical parts of the observatory that move as the telescope tracks a star across the sky. Applying designs already in use would not work for the TMT. The size of the TMT’s primary mirror and the opportunities

to integrate technology advances to see further and more clearly into space mean new enclosure solutions are required, says Halliday, who has guided the company’s work on 12 telescope projects since the 1970s. The largest telescope in operation today—the W. M. Keck Observatory telescope, on Hawaii’s Mauna Kea— measures 10 metres inside a 30-metre- diametre enclosure. Using that design for the TMT would result in an enclosure bigger than a sports stadium. “increasing the size of the enclosure, a whole raft of thermal and wind and other issues that disrupt the telescope accelerate.” The company’s solution for TMT is a “calotte” enclosure. The eyeball-shaped structure rotates at the base. A cap sitting on that base at 32.5 degrees also rotates. The combined angles of rotation allow the enclosure’s eye to Scaling creates structural and cost challenges, and, Halliday says, by

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