What is a quaternary mirror and why does the E-ELT need one?

Question

In this recent BBC article I read the one-sentence paragraph:

"Development on the mirrors - in particular, a very complex quaternary mirror - continues apace."

and became interested in the following questions:

What is a quaternary mirror
Why does the E-ELT need one
What is it about this mirror that is "very complex"?

note: the E-ELT is the European Extremely Large Telescope nearing final design, and to be installed in Chile's Atacama Desert (host to many other telescopes).

A drawing of the E-ELT from from Wikipedia (note scale of humans):

An image from the BBC article:

score 11 · Accepted Answer · edited Jun 17 '20 at 09:47

11

You may know that a standard Newtonian telescope has two mirrors, they are called the primary and secondary mirror.

The E-ELT has five mirrors: The quaternary mirror is simply "mirror number four", counting in the direction the light enters the scope.

It's complex because that's where the adaptive optics sits:

The quaternary mirror has an approximate diameter of 2.4-m (2380x2340mm). It is a flat adaptive mirror, with up to 8000 actuators, thereby allowing the surface to be readjusted at very high time frequencies. [...]

This mirror will correct in real time for high order wavefront errors (e.g. atmosphere, wind shake, low spatial frequency telescope errors) and small amplitude residual tip-tilt corrections.

Source: The European Southern Observatory's page on the E-ELT optics

edited Jun 17 '20 at 09:47

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answered May 26 '16 at 03:42

j-g-faustus

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OK - exactly what I wanted to know, thank you! I'd say that certainly qualifies as "very complex"! – uhoh May 26 '16 at 04:32
another related question – uhoh May 26 '16 at 17:11
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@uhoh I don't think I can add much to this answer and the ESO page on the challenges with adaptive optics. Looks like "no" to me. Also, there seems to be too few actuators to correct the visual band for a 40 m primary. But that's just my semi-educated guess. – j-g-faustus May 26 '16 at 20:41
Thanks! - if that's a comment on the related question, do you think you could also add it there so people can see it when they read that question? The idea is to maximize the usefulness of information for future readers. – uhoh May 27 '16 at 00:45

What is a quaternary mirror and why does the E-ELT need one?

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