Reference Fixing lever for the largest telescope in the world
Fixing lever for the largest telescope in the world
As a specialist in connection technology, Vogt AG Verbindungstechnik was commissioned to manufacture fastening levers made of PPS plastic for the FAMES Consortium, which are installed in the largest telescope in the world.
Work is under way to build the world’s largest reflector telescope 3,000 metres above sea level on Cerro Armazones mountain in the Atacama Desert in Chile by 2025. The Extremely Large Telescope (ELT) will be built by the European Southern Observatory (ESO) and with its huge primary mirror measuring 39 metres and the concept for adaptive optics, it will revolutionise researching the universe, just like Galileo did around 400 years ago when he first pointed a telescope towards the sky. This telescope will enable scientists to observe galaxies that are located 13 billion light years away. The FAMES Consortium, a cooperation between Micro-Epsilon Messtechnik and Fogale Nanotech, is producing thousands of ultra-precise sensors for the ELT, which are based on the inductive coupling principle and measure the individual mirror segments in three axes, one to within a few nanometres. As a specialist in connection technology, Vogt AG has manufactured a fixing lever made of PPS plastic for the sensor specialists.
The individual parts of the assembly are produced grease and silicone-free, and care is taken to ensure there is no burr formation. When processing the parts further they must be dust-free, and gloves must be worn when handling them. The lever meets Micro-Epsilon’s high requirements in terms of sensitivity to external influences as well as high precision (tele optical without errors during 100% final inspection). The item number and series number are laser printed with a QR code (by ARGO) for the purpose of traceability.
Credits Teleskopaufnahmen: ESO