Radio Telescope Reflectors: Historical Development of Design and Construction

Preface.- Contents.- Introduction.- Evolution of the Telescope.- Some History.- General characteristics of optical and radio telescopes.- Technological challenges for optical telescopes.- Technological challenges for radio telescopes.- Basic specifications of a reflector radio telescope.-Summary.- Birth of Radio Astronomy.- Early history of radio telescopes - Jansky, Reber, Würzburg antenna.- The first large radio telescopes (Dwingeloo, Stockert, Jodrell, Parkes, NRAO 300/140).- Structural Design of Reflector Antennas - Homology.- Introduction and Requirements.- The design of homologous structures.- The design of a 65-m homologous mm-telescope.- The Effelsberg 100-m Radio Telescope.- Backup structure and deformation patterns.- Four-point support - The WSRT Antennas.- The GMRT in India - the SMART concept.- Emergence of Millimeter-wavelength Telescopes.- Into mm-wavelengths.- The NRAO 36-ft antenna.- The IRAM Millimeter Radio Telescope (MRT).- The Large Millimeter Telescope (LMT).- The Nobeyama 45-m millimeter Telescope.- Radomes, enclosures, exposed designs (ESSCO, JCMT).- Submillimeter-wavelength Telescopes.- Introduction (specification, material choice - CFRP).- Leighton's dish and the CSO telescope.- CFRP telescopes - IRAM 15-m and HHT.- ALMA antennas.- Conclusion and outlook.- Alternative Reflector Geometries.- Telescopes with fixed main reflectors.- Horn antennas.- Offset reflector antennas - MeerKAT, SKA, GBT.- The magnetic Aspects of the Reflector Antenna.- Introduction.- Geometry of Cassegrain/Gregory telescope.- Radiation pattern of a circular aperture.- Major parameters of the reflector antenna.- Tolerance requirements on imperfections.- Measuring antenna parameters with cosmic radio sources.- Radio holographic measurement of reflector profile.- Progress in electromagnetic design.- Conclusion.- Appendix - Aberrations and Zernike polynomials.- Design and Optimization Methods.- General Remarks to the design process.- Structural and mechanical aspects of optical layout .- Structural, mechanical and servo design.- FE analysis and structural optimization.- Thermal and wind analysis.- End-to-end simulation and flexible body control.- Engineering budgets.- Verification - Surface and Pointing Measurement Methods.- Measurement and setting of reflector surface.- Pointing error and defocus by structural deformations.- Pointing Model.- Commissioning and Overall performance.- Realization.- Customer and contractors.- Project managers and system engineers.- Industrialization aspects, costs .- Technological aspects.- Workshops in foreign countries.- References.- Name index.- Subject index.- Acronyms and abbreviation.