Su Dingqiang

AWARDEE OF ASTRONOMY PRIZE

SU DINGQIANG

Abstract

Su Dingqiang, an astronomer, was born on June 15, 1936 in Shanghai. He graduated from Astronomy Department of Nanjing University in 1959.  Now, he is a professor of Nanjing Astronomical Instruments Research Center, Chinese Academy of sciences, a member (academician) of Chinese Academy of Sciences, vice president of Commission 9 (instruments and techniques), International Astronomical Union (IAU), and a deputy to the National People's Congress.
He put forward a series of new configuration for coude system in large telescope. One of them has been adopted for China's 2.16m telescope. In this system both Cassegrain system and coude system use same one secondary mirror, the exchange between these two systems is very convenient and some problems in the exchange are avoided. In such a coude system both the spherical aberration and coma can be eliminated simultaneously and the excellent image quality can be obtained. A coude system similar to China's 2.16m telescope has been used in ESO's VLT—the largest telescope in the world. Su and Prof. Wang Yanan developed a special optical optimization program, which is widely used in astronomical optics design in China since 1972. He proposed the lensm (lens-prism) corrector, which can correct not only the aberrations but also the atmospheric dispersion. Such a corrector has been used in some existent large telescopes. Su and Prof. Wang shou-guan proposed the configuration of Large Sky Area Multi-object Fiber Spectroscopic Telescope (LAMOST), As one of state large science projects, LAMOST is being developed in China. It is a wide field of view telescope with the largest aperture in the world and it is the most powerful instruments for multi-object fiber spectroscopic observation when it is established. Birefringent filter is invented by French astronomer B.Lyot. It is one of the most important instruments for solar observation. In 1968, Su and his group developed the first birefringent filter in China. Active optics is a new technology for correcting the gravitational deformation and the thermal deformation of telescope. In 1993, an experiment system of thin-mirror active optics and in 1998, an experiment system of segmented-mirror active optics were established under his lead in China. Su researched the optical system of large telescope, corrector, the optical design method, the optimization of optical system, birefringent filter and active optics. Su Dingqiang has published 52 papers. He won a second class award of National Natural Science Prize in 1993 and a first class award of National Prize of Progress in Science and Technology in 1998.