An update on the DKIST’s sitewide vibration surveillance and mitigation efforts

The National Science Foundation’s Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope (DKIST) is the largest solar telescope in the world, utilizing a 4-m off-axis primary mirror. The resulting mount size, long optical pathways, various moving components, and complex thermal design leaves DKIST with a very tight optical error budget that is susceptible to vibration-related degradation. There has been an ongoing survey to identify and address vibration sources affecting the optical path of the telescope during DKIST construction and operations. Improvements in this effort within the last year have enabled us to distinguish and categorize several vibration sources, in order to prioritize solutions for those with the highest impact on image motion. Presented herein are recent examples of sources with significant impact, including the details on how we tracked and identified them, and the solutions that were implemented in order to reduce jitter. As DKIST continues operations, future vibration mitigation efforts will be supported by additional data from other instruments in order to identify opportunities for optimization and further isolate localized vibration within our optics systems.