UbcLaval 2.7-Meter Liquid Mirror Telescope.pdf

UBC/Laval 2.7-METER LIQUID MIRROR TELESCOPEPaul Hickson1, Ermanno F. Borra2, Remi Cabanac1;2Robert Content2;3, Brad K. Gibson1;4, and Gordon A. H. Walker1Submitted toThe Astrophysical Journal, Part IIReceived June 20, 19941. Department of Geophysics and Astronomy, University of British Columbia,2219 Main Mall, Vancouver, B.C. V6T 1Z4, Canada2. Departement de Physique, Universite Laval, Quebec, P.Q. G1K 7P43. Present address: Steward Observatory, University of Arizona, Tucson AZ857214. Present address: Department of Astrophysics, University of Oxford, KebleRoad, Oxford OX1 3RH, U.K. ABSTRACTWe report the successful development and operation of a large astronomicalliquid-mirror telescope. Employing a rotating 2.7-meter diameter mirror with asurface of liquid mercury, the telescope images a half-degree diameter eld centeredat the zenith. Located near Vancouver, British Columbia, it is equipped with alow-noise 2048 2048-pixel CCD detector, operating in TDI mode, which producescontinuous imaging of a 200 wide strip of sky with 2-minute integration time. Imageswith FWHM of 200 or less are regularly obtained. This image quality is limitedonly by atmospheric seeing and star-trail curvature. The telescope is equippedwith a series of narrow-band lters, designed to produce 40-point spectral energydistributions from 0.4 to 1.0 um of all detected objects. These will allow classicationand redshift estimation of approximately 104 galaxies and 103 quasars to a limitingmagnitude of R 21.Subject headings: cosmology: observations { surveys { telescopes 2 1. INTRODUCTIONMore than a century ago it was realized that the equilibrium congurationof the surface of a uniformly rotating liquid is a paraboloid (Gibson 1991 gives ahistorical review). If the liquid is mercury, it will focus light and can be used toform an image of distant objects. Over the past ten years, experiments at LavalUniversity, (Borra et al. 1992) have resulted in rotating mercury mirrors as largeas 1.5-meter di