A New Type of Atmospheric Dispersion Corrector Suitable for Wide-Field High-Resolution Imaging and Spectroscopy on Large Telescopes

Atmospheric dispersion produces spectral elongation in images formed by land-based astronomical telescopes, and this increases as the telescope points away from zenith. Dispersion Correctors (ADCs) produce compensating that can be adjusted to best cancel out atmospheric effect. These correctors are generally of two basic types: Rotating (R-ADCs), Linear (L-ADCs). Lately, a third type, “Compensating Lateral ADC” (CL-ADC) has been proposed. None these design approaches allow for large corrector systems (with elements greater than 1 m diameter), which secondary spectrum is corrected small residuals, order tens’ milliarcseconds. This paper describes new type (>1 diameter elements), achieve correction 10 achieved combining R-ADC CL-ADC correction. Only glass types readily available metre diameters required.