THE LARGE PETAL TELESCOPE FOR THE NEXT GENERATION CANADA-FRANCE-HAWAII TELESCOPE

摘要

Considered until recently one of the best telescopes in the world, the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope (CFHT) is now bypassed by larger telescopes. Aware of this problem, the CFHT Science Advisory Council (SAC) solicited proposals from the CFH community groups to replace the present telescope by a world-class research facility before the end of the decade. A report describing our proposal is available on our web site (www.astrsp-mrs.fr/denisgcfhtgcfht.html). The motivation to design and build a new telescope is often driven by the astronomers need to observe fainter and fainter sources. The basis of the next generation CFHT (NG-CFHT) is therefore to increase the size of the primary mirror to reach fainter and more remote objects in the luminosity functions. But beyond this photon quest, the way we use the photons is also very important. The development of new technologies will permit an optimization of performances and a better image quality thanks to state-of-the-art instruments on state-of-the-art telescopes.