Control of the California Extremely Large Telescope primary mirror

Abstract

The current design concept for the California Extremely Large Telescope (CELT) includes 1080 segments in the primary mirror, with the out-of-plane degrees of freedom actively controlled. We construct the control matrix for this active control system, and describe its singular modes and sensor noise propagation. Data from the Keck telescopes are used to generate realistic estimates of the control system contributions to the CELT wavefront error and wavefront gradient error. Based on these estimates, control system noise will not significantly degrade either seeing-limited or diffraction-limited observations. The use of supplemental wavefront information for real-time control is therefore not necessary. We also comment briefly on control system bandwidth requirements and limitations.