Advanced High Reflector Coatings for the Giant Segmented Mirror Telescope

The Association of Universities for Research Astronomy’s (AURA) New Initiatives Office (NIO) is developing a Giant Segmented Mirror Telescope (GSMT), a next generation telescope also known as the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT). The telescope, whose present design consist of six hundred eighteen 1.2 m diameter mirrors, will have truly remarkable performance. It will be able to resolve crowded star fields into individual stars in galaxies as far away as 10 million light years. It will be able to image and analyze planets and dust clouds around hundreds of nearby stars. Imaging will range from the ultraviolet (UV) to long wavelength infrared (LWIR) wavelengths. The goal is to have the telescope operational by 2014. Figure 1 shows a conceptual picture of the GSMT compared to the 10-m Keck telescope and Figure 2 shows a conceptual picture of the observatory.