Related papers: Enabling Technologies for Visible Adaptive Optics:…

Large ground-based telescopes equipped with adaptive optics (AO) systems have ushered in a new era of high-resolution infrared photometry and astrometry. Relative astrometric accuracies of <0.2 mas have already been demonstrated from…

In this paper, we present a first comparison of different Adaptive Optics (AO) concepts to reach a given scientific specification for 3D spectroscopy on Extremely Large Telescope (ELT). We consider that a range of 30%-50% of Ensquarred…

The MagAO-X instrument is a new extreme adaptive optics system for high-contrast imaging at visible and near-infrared wavelengths on the Magellan Clay Telescope. A central component of this system is a 2040-actuator microelectromechanical…

The prototype Robo-AO system at the Palomar Observatory 1.5-m telescope is the world's first fully automated laser adaptive optics instrument. Scientific operations commenced in June 2012 and more than 12,000 observations have since been…

The Lick Observatory's Shane 3-meter telescope has been upgraded with a new infrared instrument (ShARCS - Shane Adaptive optics infraRed Camera and Spectrograph) and dual-deformable mirror adaptive optics (AO) system (ShaneAO). We present…

We present a status update for MagAO-X, a 2000 actuator, 3.6 kHz adaptive optics and coronagraph system for the Magellan Clay 6.5 m telescope. MagAO-X is optimized for high contrast imaging at visible wavelengths. Our primary science goals…

MagAO-X is the coronagraphic extreme adaptive optics system for the 6.5 m Magellan Clay Telescope. We report the results of commissioning the first phase of MagAO-X. Components now available for routine observations include: the >2 kHz…

MICADO is the adaptive optics imaging camera for the E-ELT. It has been designed and optimised to be mounted to the LGS-MCAO system MAORY, and will provide diffraction limited imaging over a wide (about 1 arcmin) field of view. For initial…

High-contrast imaging data analysis depends on removing residual starlight from the host star to reveal planets and disks. Most observers do this with principal components analysis (i.e. KLIP) using modes computed from the science images…

We report on the first observation of cosmologically distant field galaxies with an high order Adaptive Optics (AO) system on an 8-10 meter class telescope. Two galaxies were observed at 1.6 microns at an angular resolution as high as 50…

MagAO-X is the extreme coronagraphic adaptive optics (AO) instrument for the 6.5-meter Magellan Clay telescope and is currently undergoing a comprehensive batch of upgrades. One innovation that the instrument features is a deformable mirror…

Adaptive Optics (AO) is an innovative technique that substantially improves the optical performance of ground-based telescopes. The SOAR Adaptive Module (SAM) is a laser-assisted AO instrument, designed to compensate ground-layer…

Improving direct detection capability close to the star through improved star-subtraction and post-processing techniques is vital for discovering new low-mass companions and characterizing known ones at longer wavelengths. We present…

Light from astronomical objects must travel through the earth's turbulent atmosphere before it can be imaged by ground-based telescopes. To enable direct imaging at maximum theoretical angular resolution, advanced techniques such as those…

Wavefront of light passing through turbulent atmosphere gets distorted. This causes signal loss in free-space optical communication as the light beam spreads and wanders at the receiving end. Frequency and/or time division multiplexing…

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…

The Portable Adaptive Optics (PAO) is a low-cost and compact system, designed for 4-meter class telescopes that have no Adaptive Optics (AO), because of the physical space limitation at the Nasmyth or Cassegrain focus and the historically…

A multi-object spectrograph on the forthcoming European Extremely Large Telescope will be required to operate with good sky coverage. Many of the interesting deep cosmological fields were deliberately chosen to be free of bright foreground…

The differential refraction of light passing through the atmosphere can have a severe impact on image quality if no atmospheric dispersion corrector (ADC) is used. For the Extremely Large Telescope (ELT) this holds true well into the…

The sodium laser guide star adaptive optics system ALFA, which is installed at the Calar Alto 3.5-m telescope, has been undergoing an intensive optimisation phase. Observations using natural guide stars that are presented in this paper,…