Development of the opto-mechanical design for ICE-T

TL;DR

This paper details the design strategies for ICE-T, a robotic telescope optimized for extreme Antarctic conditions, focusing on its optical and mechanical development to enable exoplanet and stellar activity observations.

Contribution

It introduces the specific opto-mechanical design approaches tailored for ICE-T to operate effectively in the harsh Antarctic environment.

Findings

Design strategies meet optical and mechanical requirements

Successful adaptation to extreme cold conditions

Enhanced observational capabilities in Antarctic environment

Abstract

ICE-T (International Concordia Explorer Telescope) is a double 60 cm f/1.1 photometric robotic telescope, on a parallactic mount, which will operate at Dome C, in the long Antarctic night, aiming to investigate exoplanets and activity of the hosting stars. Antarctic Plateau site is well known to be one of the best in the world for observations because of sky transparency in all wavelengths and low scintillation noise. Due to the extremely harsh environmental conditions (the lowest average temperature is -80$^\circ$C) the criteria adopted for an optimal design are really challenging. Here we present the strategies we have adopted so far to fulfill the mechanical and optical requirements.