The optical design of the six-meter CCAT-prime and Simons Observatory telescopes

Understand

A common optical design for a coma-corrected, 6-meter aperture, crossed-Dragone telescope has been adopted for the CCAT-prime telescope of CCAT Observatory, Inc., and for the Large Aperture Telescope of the Simons Observatory.

• Both are to be built in the high altitude Atacama Desert in Chile for submillimeter and millimeter wavelength observations, respectively.
• The design delivers a high throughput, relatively flat focal plane, with a field of view 7.8 degrees in diameter for 3 mm wavelengths, and the ability to illuminate >100k diffraction-limited beams for < 1 mm wavelengths.
• The optics consist of offset reflecting primary and secondary surfaces arranged in such a way as to satisfy the Mizuguchi-Dragone criterion, suppressing first-order astigmatism and maintaining high polarization purity.