Related papers: Stereo-SCIDAR: Optical turbulence profiling with h…
As telescopes become larger, into the era of ~40 m Extremely Large Telescopes, the high- resolution vertical profile of the optical turbulence strength is critical for the validation, optimization and operation of optical systems. The…
Knowledge of the Earth's atmospheric optical turbulence is critical for astronomical instrumentation. Not only does it enable performance verification and optimisation of existing systems but it is required for the design of future…
We describe a new concept to correct for scintillation noise on high-precision photometry in large and extremely large telescopes using telemetry data from adaptive optics (AO) systems. Most wide-field AO systems designed for the current…
Adaptive optics (AO) is a technology in modern ground-based optical telescopes to compensate the wavefront distortions caused by atmospheric turbulence. One method that allows to retrieve information about the atmosphere from telescope data…
For extremely large telescopes, adaptive optics will be required to correct the Earth's turbulent atmosphere. The performance of tomographic adaptive optics is strongly dependent on the vertical distribution (profile) of this turbulence. An…
We present the development, tests and first results of the second generation Low Layer Scidar (LOLAS-2). This instrument constitutes a strongly improved version of the prototype Low Layer Scidar, which is aimed at the measurement of optical…
COupled SLope and scIntillation Detection And Ranging (CO-SLIDAR) is a recent profiling method of the vertical distribution of atmospheric turbulence strength ($C_n^2$ profile). It takes advantage of correlations of slopes and of…
In addition to astro-meteorological parameters, such as seeing, coherence time and isoplanatic angle, the vertical profile of the Earth's atmospheric turbulence strength and velocity is important for instrument design, performance…
We present a simple method of extracting a small number of reference optical turbulence and wind profiles from a large dataset for single conjugate and extreme adaptive optics simulations. These reference profiles can be used in slow…
Advanced adaptive optics (AO) instruments on ground-based telescopes require accurate knowledge of the atmospheric turbulence strength as a function of altitude. This information assists point spread function reconstruction, AO temporal…
Knowledge of the optical turbulence profile is important in adaptive optics (AO) systems, particularly tomographic AO systems such as those to be employed by the next generation of 40 m class extremely large telescopes (ELTs). Site…
A Single Star Scidar system(SSS) has been developed for remotely sensing atmospheric turbulence profiles. The SSS consists of computing the spatial auto/cross-correlation functions of short exposure images of the scintillation patterns…
This paper describes the data preprocessing and reduction methods together with SLODAR analysis and wind profiling techniques for GeMS: the Gemini MCAO System. The wavefront gradient measurements of the five GeMS's Shack-Hartmann sensors,…
The strength and vertical distribution of atmospheric turbulence is a key factor determining the performance of optical and infrared telescopes, with and without adaptive optics. Yet, this remains challenging to measure. We describe a new…
Atmospheric profiling is a requirement for controlling wide-field Adaptive Optics (AO) instruments, analyzing the AO performance with respect to the observing conditions and predicting the Point Spread Function (PSF) spatial variations. We…
We discuss several improvements in the detection of atmospheric turbulence using SLOpe Detection And Ranging (SLODAR). Frequently, SLODAR observations have shown strong ground-layer turbulence, which is beneficial to adaptive optics. We…
High precision fast photometry from ground-based observatories is a challenge due to intensity fluctuations (scintillation) produced by the Earth's atmosphere. Here we describe a method to reduce the effects of scintillation by a…
The performance of tomographic adaptive optics systems is intrinsically linked to the vertical profile of optical turbulence. Firstly, a sufficient number of discrete turbulent layers must be reconstructed to model the true continuous…
Adaptive optics (AO) systems using tomographic estimation of three-dimensional structure of atmospheric turbulence requires vertical atmospheric turbulence profile, which describes turbulence strength as a function of altitude as a prior…
Atmospheric turbulence causes fluctuations in the local refractive index of air that accumulatively disturb a wave's phase and amplitude distribution as it propagates. This impairs the effective range of laser weapons as well as the…