Instrumentation for Large Telescopes

Drawing from a series of lectures given at the VII Canary Islands Winter School of Astrophysics, this volume presents eight specially written chapters by leading experts in the world, covering all aspects of the peculiarities, advantages, and disadvantages of dealing with a new generation of large, ground-based telescopes that will be used well into the next century. In reviewing the challenges involved in designing successful instrumentation, this work also addresses the fundamentals of astronomical imaging, low- and high-resolution spectroscopy, and polarimetry. This book can be read profitably by advanced undergraduates and graduate students as well as those in the fields of astronomy, optics, medicine, and defense.

• The first book on the design and use of instrumentation for the new generation of large astronomical telescopes that will shape astronomy done in the next century
• Eight specially written chapters by leading experts in the world
• Includes the latest technology in adaptive optics and laser guide stars, interferometry, image pattern recognition and optical and infrared arrays