Serrurier truss

A Serrurier truss is used in

regardless of the orientation of the telescope.

Some Serrurier truss designs end the truss members with a short flexible rod creating a more ideal "parallel motion flexure" system, to allow maximum parallelism of optical elements under gravitational load. Since truss members work primarily in tension and compression, there is no appreciable loss of stiffness due to the bending of the end flexures.^{[citation needed]}

compression

, respectively.

Certain designs used by

that use a single truss, are sometimes called "Serrurier truss" designs. These single truss designs are used for their rigidity and do perform the function of keeping the optical elements parallel, but since they lack the opposing truss that keeps optics on the same optical axis they are not technically "Serrurier trusses".

Other examples of Serrurier truss designs:

• 
  200 in (5.1 m)

  Hale telescope
• 
  Forststernwarte Jena 50 cm (20 in)
• 
  Serrurier truss used on the Mayall Telescope.
• Animation of a Serrurier truss under load
• Animation of a Serrurier truss under load, slanted view

See also

• List of telescope parts and construction

Footnotes

References

• Learner, Richard. "The Legacy of the 200-inch", Sky&Telescope, April 1986, pp. 349–353
• Diffrient, Roy. "Flexure of a Serrurier Truss", Sky&Telescope, February 1994, pp. 91–94
• astro.caltech.edu - Reflecting Telescopes