The Large Sky Area Multi-Object Fiber
Spectroscopic Telescope Project
(The LAMOST Project)

National Astronomical Observatories
Chinese Academy of Sciences
Web page: http://www.lamost.org
The Large Sky Area Multi-Object Fiber Spectroscopic Telescope (LAMOST)
project as one of the National Major Scientific Projects is a quasi-meridian
reflecting Schmidt telescope laid down on the ground with its optical axis
fixed in meridian plane. The aperture of LAMOST is 4m, enabling it to obtain
the spectra of objects as faint as down to 20m.5 with an exposure of 1.5 hour.
Its focal plane is 1.75m in diameter, corresponding to 5 grade field of view, may
accommodate as many as 4000 optical fibers. So the light from 4000 celestial
objects will be led into a number of spectrographs simultaneously. LAMOST
adopts the active optics technique both for thin mirror and segmented mirror
on the Schmidt corrector M(A), as well as the parallel controllable fiber
positioning system. With these new concepts and design, LAMOST is expected
to be a unique astronomical instrument in combining a large clear aperture
and wide field of view.