1 Meter $1M Telescope
The 1-meter telescope’s primary mirror is a 39-inch (1-meter) Ritchey-Chrétien hyperbolic reflector, precision-ground to λ/10 RMS wavefront accuracy for diffraction-limited performance at visible wavelengths. Coated with protected aluminum, it achieves >90% reflectivity from 400–900 nm. The f/3 primary focuses light to a Cassegrain focus, feeding a 4K×4K CCD or high-resolution échelle spectrograph via fiber optics. It collects 1.3 million times more light than the human eye, enabling 18th-magnitude objects in 60-second exposures. Active thermal control maintains figure stability to <0.1 μm/°C, supporting exoplanet transit photometry, radial-velocity measurements to 10 m/s precision, and deep-field galaxy surveys.
