Related papers: ELT instrumentation for seeing-limited and AO-corr…
The optimal performance of adaptive optics systems can only be maintained if the wavefront reference is bright and compact. Experience has shown that both of these important criteria are remarkably difficult to achieve with laser guide…
Observatory end-to-end science operations is the overall process starting with a scientific question, represented by a proposal requesting observing time, and ending with the analysis of observation data addressing that question, and…
Deep observations of the Universe, usually as a part of sky surveys, are one of the symbols of the modern astronomy because they can allow big collaborations, exploiting multiple facilities and shared knowledge. The new generation of…
As telescope apertures increase, the challenge of scaling spectrographic astronomical instruments becomes acute. The next generation of extremely large telescopes (ELTs) strain the availability of glass blanks for optics and engineering to…
Adaptive optics is a technique mostly used on large telescopes. It turns out to be challenging for smaller telescopes (0.5~2m) due to the small isoplanatic angle, small subapertures and high correction speeds needed at visible wavelengths,…
Many spectacular polarimetric images have been obtained in recent years with adaptive optics (AO) instruments at large telescopes because they profit significantly from the high spatial resolution. This paper summarizes some basic…
The 39-meter European Extremely Large Telescope (E-ELT) is expected to have very low throughput in the blue part of the visible spectrum. Because of that, a blue-optimised spectrograph at the 8-meter Very Large Telescope could potentially…
Future large space telescopes will be equipped with adaptive optics (AO) to overcome wavefront aberrations and achieve high contrast for imaging faint astronomical objects, such as earth-like exoplanets and debris disks. In contrast to AO…
Bright single and binary stars were observed at the 4.1-m telescope with a fast electron-multiplication camera in the regime of partial turbulence correction by the visible-light adaptive optics system. We compare the angular resolution…
Adaptive Optics is a prime example of how progress in observational astronomy can be driven by technological developments. At many observatories it is now considered to be part of a standard instrumentation suite, enabling ground-based…
To meet the scientific goals of the Thirty Meter Telescope Project, full diffraction-limited performance is required from the outset and hence the entire observatory is being designed, as a system, to achieve this. The preliminary design…
We have created a new autonomous laser-guide-star adaptive-optics (AO) instrument on the 60-inch (1.5-m) telescope at Palomar Observatory called Robo-AO. The instrument enables diffraction-limited resolution observing in the visible and…
METIS will be among the first generation of scientific instruments on the E-ELT. Focusing on highest angular resolution and high spectral resolution, METIS will provide diffraction limited imaging and coronagraphy from 3-14um over an…
In the present paper, we consider the optical design of a zoom system for the active refocusing in laser guide star wavefront sensors. The system is designed according to the specifications coming from the Extremely Large Telescope…
We discuss the effect of atmospheric dispersion on the performance of a mid-infrared adaptive optics assisted instrument on an extremely large telescope (ELT). Dispersion and atmospheric chromaticity is generally considered to be negligible…
In this contribution, we present the most recent progresses we obtained in the context of a long-term program we undertook since a few years towards the implementation of operational forecast systems (a) on top-class ground-based telescopes…
The Multi-adaptive optics Imaging CamerA for Deep Observations (MICADO) will image a field of view of nearly 1 arcminute at the diffraction limit of the Extremely Large Telescope (ELT), making use of the adaptive optics correction provided…
Future Extremely Large Telescopes (ELTs) will require advances in Adaptive Optics (AO) systems to fully realize their potential. In addition to separate, dedicated wavefront sensors, it is recognized that wavefront sensing within the…
MIDIR is the proposed thermal/mid-IR imager and spectrograph for the European Extremely Large Telescope (E-ELT). It will cover the wavelength range of 3 to at least 20 microns. Designed for diffraction-limited performance over the entire…
The Multiconjugate adaptive Optic Relay For ELT Observations (MORFEO, formerly known as MAORY) is the adaptive optics (AO) module for the Extremely Large Telescope (ELT) aimed at providing a 1 arcmin corrected field to the Multi-AO Imaging…