Development of ARIES Baker-Nunn camera to a wide-field Imaging Telescope with CCD

TL;DR

This paper details the redesign of the ARIES Baker-Nunn Schmidt telescope to convert it from a satellite tracking camera into a wide-field CCD imaging telescope, enabling new astronomical research capabilities.

Contribution

It introduces a novel optical redesign that achieves a flat 4x4 degree field of view suitable for CCD imaging, expanding the telescope's scientific potential.

Findings

Achieved a flat 4x4 degree field of view for CCD imaging.

Estimated the imaging performance of the redesigned camera.

Converted a satellite tracking camera into a scientific astronomical instrument.

Abstract

ARIES Baker-Nunn Schmidt telescope project is converting a Baker-Nunn satellite tracking camera for Astronomical research. Original Baker-Nunn camera produces an extremely large (5X30 degree) curved focal plane at the prime focus for photographic imaging. We present here the re-designing of the camera produces a wide (4 X 4 degree) flat field of view for CCD imaging observations, which have many scientific potentials in Astronomy. Imaging performance of the CCD camera is also estimated.