The TMT Enclosure System is a dome structure housing the telescope. The three principal enclosure moving components are the rotating base, cap and shutter structures. Combined rotation of the rotating base and cap provides a range of required azimuth and zenith angles. The shutter is a rotating structure enabling opening and closing of the telescope aperture.
Fabricated by TMT-Japan, MSIT recreates a subset – approximately 1/70th - of the TMT primary mirror cell, and the segments it carries accurately recreate the unique hexagonal forms of the seven segments that will exist in the telescope in the same positions. Mirror segments in TMT are of 82 types – each one very slightly different – arranged in six identical sectors. MSIT contains segments from sectors D and E of the primary mirror.
Left to right: Bryan Smith (Quality Assurance and Testing Engineer), Alastair Heptonstall (Senior Opto-mechanical Engineer), Chris Carter (Telescope Controls Engineer), Alan Tubb (Associate Opto-mechanical Engineer), Ben Gallagher (M1 System Lead Engineer) and Nikhil Naik (Production Support Manager).
From left to right: A CLEARCERAM®-Z zero thermal-expansion glass mirror blank cast by OHARA Inc. in Japan, a prototype of TMT Primary Mirror Assembly, and a spherical glass precisely grinded by Okamoto Optics in Yokohama. Exhibits were featured at the Optics and Photonics International Exhibition, 25-27 April 2018 in Yokohama, Japan.
From Left: Tatsuki Endo (TMT-Japan), Janani Varadhachari (ITCC), Shuji Samizo (Nippon Express) and Nikhil Naik (ITCC)
All delivered TMT blanks are stored in India TMT Optics Fabrication Facility (ITOFF) inspection area, at IIA Crest Campus, Bengaluru.
The M3 system includes the M3 Blank, the M3 Mirror (a 3.5m by 2.5m flat elliptical mirror), the upper portion of the tertiary mirror (M3) system Tower, the M3 Cell Assembly, the M3 Positioner Assembly, the interface hardware between the M3 System and the Telescope Assembly, and support for receiving, assembly, inspection and verification of the M3 System onto the TMT Telescope at the Observatory. TMT M3S will approximately weigh 12 tons.
From left to right: Hu Haixiang, Luo Xiao, Qi Erhui, Hu Haifei Engineers from TMT China Changchun Group, in charge of the fabrication of TMT M3, are testing epoxy bonding pads on a 1/4 M3 prototype in Changchun lab.
Located in the center of the primary mirror, M3 is used to fold and steer the light path coming down from the secondary mirror, so the science beam can be delivered to any of the instruments active on the telescope.
From Left: Robert Anderson, Fernando Santoro, Hugh Thompson, Guo Peng (CIOMP), John Rogers, Jiang Haibo (CIOMP), Tomas Chylek, Glen Cole, Tim Campbell (Campbell Consulting), Gary Muller (GMT), Fengchuan Liu, Luo Xiao (CIOMP), Myung Cho (NOAO). Remote Participants: Liu Jing (CIOMP) and Zhang Shixue (CIOMP)
US ELT group picture at the 235th American Astronomical Society Meeting in Honolulu on January 2020, featuring representatives of the National Science Foundation’s (NSF) National Optical Infrared Astronomy Research Laboratory (NOIRLab), the Giant Magellan Telescope Organization (GMTO), and the TMT International Observatory (TIO). [ From top left: Amanda Kocz, Director of Communications (GMTO); Rebecca Bernstein, Project Scientist (GMTO); Chris Martin, TIO SAC Member, Caltech Professor; Christophe Dumas, TMT Observatory Scientist & Head of Operations (TIO); Gary Sanders, TMT Project Manager (TIO); Mike Bolte, TIO Board of Directors, UCSC Professor; Sandra Dawson, Manager Hawaii Community Affairs (TIO); Fengchuan Liu, TMT Deputy Project Manager (TIO); Warren Skidmore, Instrumentation System Scientist (TIO); Pat McCarthy, Director NSF National OIR Astronomy Research Laboratory (AURA); Mark Dickinson, US-ELT Program Scientist (AURA); Taft Armandroff, Vice-Chair GMTO Board of Directors; Heidy Kelman, Mechanical Design Engineer (GMTO); Jim Fanson, GMT Project Manager (GMTO); Sydney Wolff, US-ELT Program Director; Caty Pilachowski, TIO Board of Directors (AURA); Gordon Squires, Head Communication & Vice President External Affairs (TIO) ]
