发表机构
University of Victoria; NRC Herzberg Astronomy and Astrophysics Research Centre（维多利亚大学; 加拿大国家研究委员会赫茨伯格天体物理学研究中心）
机构由 AI 辅助整理，请以论文原文为准。AI 中文总结
该研究探索分布式孔径望远镜在超扩散星系光谱观测中的应用，对比不同配置的成本与性能，发现半米口径阵列可低成本实现与大望远镜相当的观测，为相关光谱巡天提供方案。
AI 中文摘要
针对最暗天体的科学项目促使现代望远镜不断向更大尺寸、更高成本和更复杂设计发展。例如，获取低表面亮度星系的光谱需要在最先进的仪器上进行数小时的观测。将望远镜口径增大到40米以上会给设计和资金带来潜在难以克服的挑战。应对这些成本的创新策略是使用许多小型望远镜代替单个大口径望远镜。对于不需要高角分辨率的观测，其灵敏度可与大口径望远镜相当，而衍射则受单个孔径限制。商用现货（COTS）组件的改进使这一概念成为可能，Dragonfly远摄阵列、Huntsman望远镜和Argus阵列等仪器已证明了这一点。本工作讨论“分布式孔径望远镜”在超扩散星系（UDGs）光谱观测用例中的优势，比较了用于此目的的不同孔径、探测器及其他组件配置的成本和模拟科学性能，发现半米口径望远镜阵列能以一小部分成本获得与大型望远镜相当的观测结果。最后，讨论了原型阵列的研发路径，该阵列将实现超扩散星系的光谱巡天。
英文摘要
Scientific programs targeting the faintest objects push modern telescopes to increasingly large sizes, high costs and complex designs. Obtaining spectra of low surface brightness galaxies, for example, requires hours of observations on state-of-the art instruments. Increasing telescope diameters beyond 40 m raises potentially insurmountable challenges for design and funding. An innovative strategy for combating these costs is to use many small telescopes in place of a single large aperture. For observations in which high angular resolution is not necessary, this can be equivalent to a large diameter telescope in terms of sensitivity, while diffraction limited by the individual aperture. Improvements in commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) components have made this concept a possibility, as demonstrated by instruments such as the Dragonfly Telephoto Array, the Huntsman Telescope, and the Argus Array. In this work, we discuss the merits of "distributed aperture telescopes" as applied to the use case of spectroscopic observations of ultra-diffuse galaxies (UDGs). We compare the cost and simulated scientific performance of different configurations of apertures, detectors, and other components for this purpose, finding that an array of half-metre telescopes can obtain comparable observations to large telescopes for a fraction of the cost. Finally, we discuss the path to prototyping an array which will enable a spectroscopic survey of UDGs.
Comments8 pages, 4 figures. Presented at SPIE 2026
Journal refProc. SPIE (2026) 1414734
