The Ground-based Experiment of the Prototype of Planetary (& Lunar) Rotation Monitor Telescope

Abstract

The scientific objective of the Planetary (& Lunar) Rotation Monitor (PRM) telescope is to study the terrestrial planet's (the Moon's) rotation and its interior structure and physics by in-situ observation. In order to verify the brand new principle of observations and the data processing method, the prototype of the telescope is designed and manufactured. The prototype's optical system consists of a commercial telescope and trihedron mirror set placed at the entrance of its light path to realize the capability of observing three fields of view (FOVs) simultaneously. The ground-based validation observation began in 2017, and the images containing the stars from three FOVs were achieved. Star images from different FOVs are initially mixed together, but they can be classified into the three FOVs respectively by calculating the displacement of star images on the CCD plate between two adjacent exposures, to make the observational effect be identical with three independent observations of the three FOVs respectively. After image processing, from the orientation variation of the three FOVs simultaneously in space due to the Earth's rotation, the direction of the rotation axis of the Earth in space can be derived. Its deviation from the theoretical value is about 1″ in average, indicating that the working principle and data processing method are effective. The main errors in observations are discussed, including the atmospheric refraction, the thermal deformation of the commercial telescope tube, the low optical resolution caused by the short focal length, the optical aberration in the multi-FOV observation, etc. It is indicated that the spatial resolution of the telescope can be enhanced with a longer focal length, and the observational reliability can be improved by optimizing the thermal deformation control. Improving the optical design in the simultaneous observation of multiple FOVs will also be helpful to the accuracy enhancement.