Johann Cohen-Tanugi edited Description of LSST.tex  over 9 years ago

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\subsection{Description of the LSST}  The LSST will be constructed on El Pe\~nón Peak, in the Cerro Pachón mountains of the northern Chilean Andes, at an altitude of 2680 meters. This site benefits from the weather data taken over more than 10 years at the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory (CTIO), located 10 km away. These data show that more than 80\% of the nights are usable with excellent atmospheric conditions. \textbf{The %\textbf{The  ``seeing'' at 500 nm (the FWHM of the image of a point source) has for instance been measured as 0.67'' average (0.59'' median, with 25\% first and last quantiles at 0.44 and 0.81'', respectively).} Furthermore, Cerro Pachón is also home of the Gemini South and SOAR telescopes, which have confirmed the site performance, and provide extensive infrastructure eventually usable by the LSST both at the summit and at the Base Facility, located 57 km away at La Serena. \textbf{The %\textbf{The  summit has already been leveled off and construction has officialy started after the successful recent readiness reviews that the project undertook.} The telescope design is a three-mirror anastigmat, with the primary mirror reaching a diameter size of 8.4 meters (6.5 meter effective radius). All three mirrors will be actively supported to control wavefront distortions introduced by gravity and environmental stresses on the telescope. The dome that contains the telescope has been designed to reduce dome seeing and to maintain a uniform thermal environment over the course of the night.