The U.S. National 8 m telescope project

The National Optical Astronomy Observatories (NOAO) are planning to buld two 8 m telescopes, one for Mauna Kea, Hawaii, the other for a site in Chile. Optical configurations, primary mirror systems, and the telescope mounting are discussed. A new optical testing method is outlined. The system imaging goal is 0.25 FWHM. Construction could begin in the early 1990's.Paper presented at the Symposium on the JNLT and Related Engineering Developments, Tokyo, November 29–December 2, 1988.Operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy Inc., under contract with the National Science Foundation.     

NLST: India's National Large Solar Telescope

This article introduces the new Indian 2 m telescope which has been designed by MT Mechatronics in a detailed conceptual design study for the Indian Institute of Astrophysics, Bangalore. We describe the background of the project and the science goals which shall be addressed with this telescope. NLST is a solar telescope with high optical throughput and will be equipped with an integrated Adaptive Optics system. It is optimized for a site with the kind of seeing and wind conditions as they are expected at a lake site in the Himalayan mountains. The telescope can also be used for certain night time applications. We also give the scientific rationale for this class of telescope (© 2010 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)     

Book Review: W. F. Bottke Jr., A. Cellino,P. Paolicchi,and R. P. Binzel: Asteroids III,University of Arizona press,Tucson, Arizona, 2003, 1025 pages. ISBN: 0-8165-2281-2

Earth, Moon, and Planets -     

Second National Workshop on Solar Physics,Indian Institute of Astrophysics,Kodaikanal, India

This paper presents a brief report about the topics discussed at the second Indian National Workshop on Solar Physics held in September 1987.     

Modeling of multi-interface, diverging, hydrodynamic experiments for the National Ignition Facility

The National Ignition Facility (NIF) will soon provide experiments with far more than ten times the energy than has been previously available on laser facilities. In the context of supernova-relevant hydrodynamics, this will enable experiments in which hydrodynamic instabilities develop from multiple, coupled interfaces in a diverging explosion. This paper discusses the design of such blast-wave-driven explosions in which the relative masses of the layers are scaled to those within the star. It reports scaling simulations with CALE to model the global dynamics of such an experiment. CALE is a hybrid, Arbitrary Lagrangian-Eulerian code. The simulations probed the instability growth and multi-interface interactions in mass-scaled systems using different materials. The simulations assist in the target design process and in developing an experiment that can be diagnosed.