<title>Optical design, error budget, and specifications for the Columbus Project Telescope</title>

Abstract

The Columbus Project's double 8-m diameter binocular (11.3-m aperture) telescope optical configuration encompasses (1) two Cassegrain foci at f/5.4 that are optimized for wide-field optical observations, (2) an additional two Cassegrain foci at f/15 which are optimized for the thermal IR, (3) a combined f/33 focus optimized for interferometry, and (4) several additional stations derived from either the folding or redirection of the first three types. Attention is presently given to the telescope's error budget, whose goal is the achievement of a wavefront structure function equivalent to images of 0.23 arcsec FWHM; the wavefront of the combined telescope, atmosphere, and instrumentation should be equivalent to a detected image of 0.34 arcsec FWHM.