INVESTIGATING THE IMPACT OF MECHANICAL DEFORMATIONS ON THE FIELD DISTRIBUTION IN THE ANTENNA APPERTURE FOR THE ROT-54/2.6 RADIO TELESCOPE

Abstract

A telescope is never perfect because of mechanical, gravitational, temperature and wind-induced deformations of its structure, because of production imperfections and because of accidental small misalignments of constrictive elements. The resulting degrading effect on the beam pattern is negligible if the corresponding deformation of the reflector and the misalignment of the constructive elements (main reflector, sub reflector, receiver) is small compared to the wavelength of observation, i.e smaller than λ/16. The degradation becomes noticeable and disturbing if the corresponding deformation is larger than λ/10.

In our work we examined the influence of mechanical deformations on the field distribution in the antenna aperture for the ROT-54/2.6 Radio Optical Telescope.