Looking beyond 30m-class telescopes: the Colossus project

J. R. Kuhn, S. V. Berdyugina, M. Langlois, G. Moretto, E. Thiébaut, C. Harlingten, D. Halliday, Larry M. Stepp, Roberto Gilmozzi, Helen J. Hall
2014 Ground-based and Airborne Telescopes V  
The exponential growth in exoplanet studies is a powerful reason for developing very large optical systems optimized for narrow-field science. Concepts which cross the boundary between fixed aperture telescopes and interferometers, combined with technologies that decrease the system moving mass, can violate the cost and mass scaling laws that make conventional large-aperture telescopes relatively expensive. Here we describe a concept which breaks this scaling relation in a large optical/IR system called "Colossus" 1 .
doi:10.1117/12.2056594 fatcat:3hxt3fk73rcv5jgvcxxpljonty