The design and construction of a telescope mount for a wide field polarimeter

Abstract

This thesis describes the design, construction and operation of a prototype wide field polarimeter to be used in large scale polarisation studies of the sky. A personal computer controls the stepper motors which drive an equatorial mount arrangement, whilst a lap top computer controls the CCD camera software. The third, fourth and fifth chapters describe the initial design process. The sixth chapter describes in detail the final design of the telescope mount. The seventh chapter gives an insight into how the structure was fabricated. Finally, the thesis describes the commissioning and operation of the telescope mount, with a section incorporating some results obtained from observing Jupiter.