Daily Image
05-11-2007
X-shooter prisms mounted in their housing
| Submitter: | Rik ter Horst |
| Description: | As promised in the AJDI of September 24 (see archive) today's daily image is an update about the status of the three prisms of X-shooter. The photo shows the three cross-dispersion prisms mounted in their housing: one Infrasil prism (left) and two Zinc Selenide prisms. For mounting delicate optics there is always a trade-off between firmly fixing the optics (mechanical engineers do like that) and stressing or even cracking the optics (optical engineers do NOT like that). Moreover also differential expansion of different materials during cool-down or warm-up (293 K <-> 105 K) has to be accounted for. This makes the design complicated with springs and other mechanical compensations. |
| Copyright: | Rik ter Horst |
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