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Canon Shows Off Optical Components for Subaru Telescope & Thirty-Meter Telescope

September 14, 2015 By Eric Reagan

Canon Thirty-Meter Telescope-2

1/150 scale model of the Thirty-Meter Telescope

Outside of the traditional photographer and video realms at the Canon Expo 2015 in New York, Canon revealed its part in projects for the Subaru Telescope and the Thirty-Meter Telescope.

Subaru Telescope-2

The Subaru Telescope is located at the summit of Mauna Kea, Hawaii. Canon developed and manufactured the prime-focus corrector lens unit (above) for the Subaru Telescope using aspherical lenses to minimize aperture, weight and the total number of lenses.

Subaru Telescope-5

The above image shows a 1/100 scale model of the Subaru Telescope featuring Canon lens elements. As seen in the diagram below, the external diameter of the lens is 674mm (about 26.5 inches) and it weighs about 115 lbs. In case you were wondering, it is not available in Canon EF mount.

Subaru Telescope

Thirty-Meter Telescope

Canon Thirty-Meter Telescope-2

The Thirty-Meter Telescope, or TMT, is a next generation telescope that will also be located on the summit of Mauna Kea, Hawaii. As the name implies, the primary mirror will be 30 meters in diameter.

Approximately 30% of the 492 segments that make up the TMT’s primary mirror will be processed in Japan with Canon playing a critical role in the manufacturing.

Canon Thirty-Meter Telescope-3

The TMT will have 13 times the light-gathering power of the Subaru Telescope and four times the resolution, which would allow a penny to be seen at 300 miles away.

Canon Thirty-Meter Telescope-6

Canon had on display a full-scale model of one single mirror segment from the TMT’s 492 segments. The single mirror is 1.44 meter in diameter and 45mm thick. The cutaway of the mirror shows the Segment Support Assembly, which is a mechanism that enables precise adjustments to ensure the proper positioning of each mirror segment.

Canon Thirty-Meter Telescope-7

Filed Under: Canon Tagged With: astronomy, Canon, Canon Expo, Canon Expo 2015, Subaru Telescope, Thirty-Meter Telescope, TMT

 

Comments

  1. Gary says

    September 30, 2015 at 3:44 am

    I would highly appreciate if you include some images of Subaru telescope. Honestly, I dont have an idea how it looks, hence a lot helpful to see some image.

    • Eric Reagan says

      September 30, 2015 at 9:21 pm

      Third image from the top is a 1/100th scale model of the Subaru telescope.

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