Optical Pointing Systems for the TM VGOS Telescope

Abstract

We present here the systems aimed to measure and minimize the pointing errors for TM VGOS Telescope. The principle of pointing error correction of radio telescope is the same as that of optical telescope. By conducting pointing measurement test on target source with known precise direction, the pointing error test samples are obtained, and then the parameter model of pointing error correction is obtained. In this paper, an optical pointing telescope is used to calibrate the pointing of a radio telescope to achieve a pointing accuracy of less than 3". Design details are given for a stable optical pointing telescope for radio astronomy.