The design

An experiment rather than an observatory

ICE-T is rather an experiment than a classical astronomical telescope. It is not intended to be slewed during a night a remains pointed to a fixed location in the sky. Only then we can take full advantage of the unique length of a polar night. Tracking would be done only along one axis and remains relatively uncritical because of the short 10-second exposure time.

Telescopes

A double Wynne-Schmidt telescope with a 81-cm mirror and an entrance aperture of 60 cm on a single mount is envisioned, each feeding a single-bandpass CCD camera. We aim at a photometric precision of sub-millimagnitude down to V=15.5 mag. The telescope will facilitate two 10k-by-10k thinned 9-micron CCDs. Its total field of view would be about 12° circular (8°x8° square) and its plate scale therefore 3" per pixel.

Huge monolithic CCD for ICE-T

Dome construction draft