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LAMOST

Large Sky Area Multi-Object Fibre Spectroscopic Telescope

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionAug 17, 2026
Entity authorityQ1513326 ↗
Source-derived summary

The Large Sky Area Multi-Object Fiber Spectroscopic Telescope (LAMOST), also known as the Guo Shoujing Telescope (Chinese: 郭守敬望远镜) after the 13th-century Chinese astronomer, is a meridian reflecting Schmidt telescope, located in Xinglong Station, Hebei Province, China. Undertaken by the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the telescope is planned to conduct a 5-year spectroscopic survey of 10 million Milky Way stars, as well as millions of galaxies. The project's budget is RMB 235 million yuan.

Optics

LAMOST is configured as a reflective Schmidt telescope with active optics. There are two mirrors, each made up of a number of 1.1-metre (p-p) hexagonal deformable segments. The first mirror, MA (24 segments, fitting in a 5.72×4.4 m rectangle) is a Schmidt corrector plate in a dome at ground level. The almost-flat mirror MA reflects the light to the south, up a large slanted tunnel (25° above horizontal) to the larger spherical focusing mirror MB (37 segments, fitting in a 6.67×6.09 m rectangle). This directs light to a focal plane 1.75 metres in diameter corresponding to a five-degree field of view. The focal plane is tiled with 4000 fiber-positioning units, each feeding an optical fiber which transfers light to one of sixteen 250-channel spectrographs below.

Looking at the image opposite, MB is at the top of the left-hand supporting column of the tower, MA is in the left of the two domes at the right of the image (the rightmost, grey dome is an unrelated telescope), and the spectrographs are inside the right-hand column of the tower.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “LAMOST” is large Sky Area Multi-Object Fibre Spectroscopic Telescope. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through LAMOST, Large and Area, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewA dependable orientation record for establishing vocabulary, names and a first evidence trail. The current 251-word lead offers orientation but no explicit four-digit date, so chronology should not be assumed. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. For this dossier, LAMOST, Large and Area is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “large Sky Area Multi-Object Fibre Spectroscopic Telescope” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 17, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1513326. Authority coordinates are 40.396, 117.576. None of the 1 selected statements returned an explicit reference.

Critical limits

Overview language is designed for orientation and should not be treated as a substitute for the evidence cited beneath it. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

Best used for
  • Subject orientation
  • Search vocabulary
  • Locating named sources
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The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “LAMOST”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow LAMOST primary sources, LAMOST archive and LAMOST research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “LAMOST”?
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  3. What terminology or title could unlock a more precise catalogue search?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “LAMOST” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.