Related papers: On-sky wide field adaptive optics correction using…
Observational tests of ground layer wavefront recovery have been made in open loop using a constellation of four natural guide stars at the 1.55 m Kuiper telescope in Arizona. Such tests explore the effectiveness of wide-field seeing…
The performance of an adaptive optics (AO) system on a 100m diameter ground based telescope working in the visible range of the spectrum is computed using an analytical approach. The target Strehl ratio of 60% is achieved at 0.5um with a…
A ground-layer adaptive optics system (GLAO) uses a single adaptive mirror to partially correct the wavefront for atmospheric and telescope aberrations over a wide field of view. Instead of reaching diffraction limit on a narrow field, the…
One important frontier for astronomical adaptive optics (AO) involves methods such as Multi-Object AO and Multi-Conjugate AO that have the potential to give a significantly larger field of view than conventional AO techniques. A second key…
Having completed its commissioning phase, the Advanced Rayleigh guided Ground-layer adaptive Optics System (ARGOS) facility is coming online for scientific observations at the Large Binocular Telescope (LBT). With six Rayleigh laser guide…
We present an analytical derivation of the on-axis performance of Adaptive Optics systems using a given number of guide stars of arbitrary altitude, distributed at arbitrary angular positions in the sky. The expressions of the residual…
Using five independent analytic and Monte Carlo simulation codes, we have studied the performance of wide field ground layer adaptive optics (GLAO), which can use a single, relatively low order deformable mirror to correct the wavefront…
Adaptive optics laser guide star systems perform atmospheric correction of stellar wavefronts in two parts: stellar tip-tilt and high-spatial-order laser-correction. The requirement of a sufficiently bright guide star in the field-of-view…
First multi-conjugate adaptive-optical (MCAO) systems are currently being installed on solar telescopes. The aim of these systems is to increase the corrected field-of-view with respect to conventional adaptive optics. However, this first…
Gravitationally lensed systems allow a detailed view of galaxies at high redshift. High spatial- and spectral-resolution measurements of arc-like structures can offer unique constraints on the physical and dynamical properties of high-z…
Ground-layer adaptive optics (GLAO) systems offer the possibility of improving the "seeing" of large ground-based telescopes and increasing the efficiency and sensitivity of observations over a wide field-of-view. We explore the utility and…
Most current astronomical adaptive optics (AO) systems rely on the availability of a bright star to measure the distortion of the incoming wavefront. Replacing the guide star with an artificial laser beacon alleviates this dependency on…
In order to increase the corrected field of view of an adaptive optics (AO) system, several deformable mirrors (DM) have to be placed in the conjugate planes of the dominant turbulent layers (multi-conjugate adaptive optics, MCAO [Beckers…
Robo-AO is an autonomous laser guide star adaptive optics system recently commissioned at the Kitt Peak 2.1-m telescope. Now operating every clear night, Robo-AO at the 2.1-m telescope is the first dedicated adaptive optics observatory.…
Adaptive optics (AO) systems allow a telescope to reach its diffraction limit at near infrared wavelengths. But to achieve this, a bright natural guide star (NGS) is needed for the wavefront sensing, severely limiting the fraction of the…
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,…
This project is focused on evaluating the slowly-varying ground layer seeing component at the optical telescopes of ARIES. To achieve this, we assembled the instrument, consisting of a filter wheel, a CCD camera, and a tip-tilt enabled…
Both lucky imaging techniques and adaptive optics require natural guide stars, limiting sky coverage, even when laser guide stars are used. Lucky imaging techniques become less successful on larger telescopes unless adaptive optics is used,…
It is widely believed that adaptive optics only has a role in correcting turbulent wavefronts on large telescopes using very bright reference stars. Unfortunately these are very scarce and many astronomical targets require wavefront…
The availability and performance of laser-based adaptive optics (AO) systems are strongly dependent on the power and quality of the laser beam before being projected to the sky. Frequent and time-consuming alignment procedures are usually…