THE EFFECT OF THE LOCAL ATMOSPHERIC
ENVIRONMENT ON ASTRONOMICAL OBSERVATIONS
by LORENZO ZAGO
PhD thesis submitted to the
Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne
February 1995
This is a hypertext version of the draft report of a dissertation which presents in a comprehensive manner the issues related to the interaction of a modern telescope with its local atmospheric environment. In particular the multifold effects of wind and local "seeing", which are key design drivers in the project of astronomical observatories are analysed. This work is largely derived from the author's experience on the design and engineering of the ESO Very Large Telescope (VLT) observatory between 1984 and 1993.
This draft document is offered as a service to the astronomical projects community in the hope that it can be useful to the development of new observatory projects. No responsibility whatsoever is assumed about the pertinence and accuracy of all data and results presented. All comments are welcome.
This hypertext document was translated from a LaTeX source by means of the Latex2htlm program by Nikos Drakos. The presentation is somewhat less than optimal and it does not include several figures as well the annexes included in the printed report. Interested persons are welcome to ask directly the author about these missing elements.
Copyright © 1994 by Lorenzo Zago and EPFL.
Saving and printing of individual pages is permitted for research reasons only.
Printing of more than a few pages is explicitely prohibited without
the written permission of the author.
This is a draft report. Its results and conclusions should not be cited without the author's permission.