Transforming the Canada France Hawaii Telescope (CFHT) into the Maunakea Spectroscopic Explorer (MSE): A Conceptual Observatory Building and Facilities Design

TL;DR

This paper details the conceptual design and infrastructure upgrades needed to transform the existing CFHT observatory into the Maunakea Spectroscopic Explorer (MSE), a larger, modern spectroscopic survey telescope.

Contribution

It presents a comprehensive design approach for upgrading the CFHT facility to support the new MSE, including infrastructure, equipment, and operational considerations.

Findings

Reuse of existing building and infrastructure where possible

Design of a larger 11.25m aperture telescope with a 12.5m slit opening

Implementation of modern remote operation technologies

Abstract

The Canada France Hawaii Telescope Corporation (CFHT) plans to repurpose its observatory on the summit of Maunakea and operate a new wide field spectroscopic survey telescope, the Maunakea Spectroscopic Explorer (MSE). MSE will upgrade the observatory with a larger 11.25m aperture telescope and equip it with dedicated instrumentation to capitalize on the site, which has some of the best seeing in the northern hemisphere, and offer its user community the ability to do transformative science. The knowledge and experience of the current CFHT staff will contribute greatly to the engineering of this new facility. MSE will reuse the same building and telescope pier as CFHT. However, it will be necessary to upgrade the support pier to accommodate a bigger telescope and replace the current dome since a wider slit opening of 12.5 meters in diameter is needed. Once the project is completed the new facility will be almost indistinguishable on the outside from the current CFHT observatory. MSE will build upon CFHT's pioneering work in remote operations, with no staff at the observatory during the night, and use modern technologies to reduce daytime maintenance work. This paper describes the design approach for redeveloping the CFHT facility for MSE including the infrastructure and equipment considerations required to support and facilitate nighttime observations. The building will be designed so existing equipment and infrastructure can be reused wherever possible while meeting new requirement demands. Past experience and lessons learned will be used to create a modern, optimized, and logical layout of the facility. The purpose of this paper is to provide information to readers involved in the MSE project or organizations involved with the redevelopment of an existing observatory facility for a new mission.