Abstract

At the time that the Keck-I 10m telescope was constructed in 1993, the era of Very Large Telescopes (VLTs) was opened. Now thirteen VLTs are in operation, and the largest of the monolithic mirrors is 8.4 m in diameter. Such monolithic mirrors are mostly aspheric and require high accuracies on the surface figures, reaching up to the diffraction limit. At present, next generation telescopes, Giant telescopes, are being developed. One is the GMT (Giant Magellan Telescope) whose size is 25.4 m in diameter. The primary mirror consists of seven segments figuring elliptical shapes on the surface. The surrounding six segments are off-axis and the edges are steep, as the fast focal ratio is adopted. It means that testing of the mirrors is a challenging task. In this paper, testing methods for the GMT primary mirror are reviewed, and accuracy of measuring devices is assessed. Results and discussions follow.

© 2009 Optical Society of Korea

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