For the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope

{Image credit: LSST Corporation}
Gainesville FL, USA -- GEC Instruments has been awarded a contract from LSST Corporation in Tucson, Arizona, to build four ultra high accuracy, high resolution temperature measurement instruments, each with 94 thermocouple input channels, accompanied by software for display, plotting, logging, and retrieval of temperature data.

This instrumentation will be used to measure small temperature variations over the range -5 °C to 25 °C on the 27 foot diameter primary/tertiary mirror for the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (www.lsst.org), a ground-based facility that will be located atop Cerro Pachón in the Chilean Andes.

The LSST system will combine a wide field of view, rapid scans of the sky, and deep-imaging capability to map billions of objects and monitor changes in brightness and position.

This project requires ultra high accuracy in temperature measurements with thermocouples, and unprecedented channel to channel uniformity of ± 0.02 °C among all 376 channels of the system.

The temperature readings from the thermocouples will be used by LSST scientists and engineers in a real time control system to control mirror temperature gradients to ± 0.1°C or less across the entire volume of the mirror as it reacts to changes in air temperature during the night.

"We are delighted to continue our advancements in development of unique instrumentation for making precision temperature measurements by being a part of the LSST project," said Jerry Gaffney, Chief Engineer at GEC Instruments.

About GEC Instruments

GEC Instruments (www.gecinstruments.com) specializes in the design, development and production of ultra high accuracy PC based temperature and humidity measurement instrumentation for use in research and development and precision testing applications.

GEC Instruments
5530 N. W. 97th Street
Gainesville, Florida 32653 USA

Tel: +1 352-373-7955
Web: www.gecinstruments.com