Haotong Zhang
National Observatory of China, Beijing
Title: The LAMOST project
Abstract:
The Large Sky Area Multi-Object Fiber Spectroscopic Telescope (LAMOST)
project is one of the National Major Scientific Projects undertaken by
the Chinese Academy of Science. LAMOST is a quasi-meridian reflecting
Schmidt telescope, with its optical axis fixed in the meridian plane.
The aperture of LAMOST is 4m, enabling it to obtain spectra of objects
as faint as 20.5 magnitudes with exposures of 1.5 hours. Its focal
plane is 1.75m in diameter, corresponding to a 5 degree field of view,
and it can accommodate as many as 4000 optical fibers. Light from up
to 4000 celestial objects will be fed into 16 spectrographs
simultaneously. Thus, once in full operation, the LAMOST telescope
will possess the highest spectrum acquisition rate in the world.
LAMOST adopts the active optics technique both for thin mirror and
segmented mirror on the Schmidt corrector MA, as well as the parallel
controllable fiber positioning system. With these new concepts and
design, LAMOST is expected to be a unique astronomical instrument in
combining a large clear aperture and wide field of view.
In the year 2009, the construction of LAMOST has already been
completed, and engineering tests are now in progress. In my talk, I
will give an introduction to LAMOST, as well as summarize the current
state of operation.