Atmospheric refraction and the design of a wide-field fibre-optics coupler

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Abstract
The development of low-loss optical fibres has introduced the possibility of using a Schmidt telescope to carry out simultaneous slit spectroscopy of many objects distributed over a very wide field. The use of linear detectors in such an arrangement would permit much longer exposures than can be carried out with sky-limited photographic emulsions, so the effects of differential atmospheric refraction become a consideration in the design of the optical fibre feed. These are investigated for the case of the 1.2-m UK Schmidt telescope, where an experimental fibre coupler is being constructed. It is found that in conditions of good seeing, and with current design parameters, integrations on a point source at the extreme edge of the field will be typically limited to 4 hr, but that this figure increases rapidly for objects nearer the field centre, and may be much greater for extended objects.

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