The Design of the Keck Observatory and Telescope

This report describes the design of the Ten Meter Telescope and Observatory. Since 1977 the University of California has been actively designing a ten meter telescope for visible and infrared ground-based astronomy. The University of California and the California Institute of Technology have now joined in a collaboration to construct and operate this telescope and observatory. A generous gift of seventy million dollars to Caltech from the W. M. Keck Foundation, announced in January 1985, will provide funds for the construction of the facility. In recognition the facility will be named the W. M. Keck Telescope and Observatory. The University of California will provide funds for its operation. We expect construction to be completed by 1990. The design of the telescope and observatory continues to be improved as the detailed design progresses. The description given here is current as of January 1985. Although many design details will change before construction, this description is accurate in the general concept and in many particulars. The details of the design are described in an ongoing series of Reports and Technical Notes. An index to this series is given in the Reference Section of this report.