Related papers: A Sodium laser guide star coupling efficiency meas…
We have developed and tested a novel method, based on LIDAR, of measuring the height and profile of the mesospheric sodium layer using a continuous wave laser. It is more efficient than classical LIDAR as the laser is on for 50% of the…
Context: Sodium laser guide stars (LGS) are about to enter a new range of laser powers. Previous theoretical and numerical methods are inadequate for accurate computations of the return flux and hence for the design of the next-generation…
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…
Segmented primary mirrors are indispensable to master the steady increase in spatial resolution. Phasing optics systems must reduce segment misalignments to guarantee the high optical quality required for astronomical science programs.…
Over the last few years increasing consideration has been given to the study of Laser Guide Stars (LGS) for the measurement of the disturbance introduced by the atmosphere in optical and near-infrared astronomical observations from the…
The sodium laser guide star adaptive optics system ALFA has been constructed at the Calar Alto 3.5-m telescope. Following the first detection of the laser beacon on the wavefront sensor in 1997 the system is now being optimized for best…
Multi-Conjugate Adaptive Optics systems based on sodium Laser Guide Stars may exploit Natural Guide Stars to solve intrinsic limitations of artificial beacons (tip-tilt indetermination and anisoplanatism) and to mitigate the impact of the…
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…
The performance of adaptive optics systems is partially dependant on the algorithms used within the real-time control system to compute wavefront slope measurements. We demonstrate use of a matched filter algorithm for the processing of…
Astronomical adaptive optics systems are used to increase effective telescope resolution. However, they cannot be used to observe the whole sky since one or more natural guide stars of sufficient brightness must be found within the…
We briefly discuss the past, present, and future state of astronomical science with laser guide star adaptive optics (LGS AO). We present a tabulation of refereed science papers from LGS AO, amounting to a total of 23 publications as of May…
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.…
The performance of a wide-field adaptive optics system depends on input design parameters. Here we investigate the performance of a multi-conjugate adaptive optics system design for the European Extremely Large Telescope, using an…
Laser guide stars with adaptive optics allow astronomical image correction in the absence of a natural guide star. Single guide star systems with a star created in the earth's sodium layer can be used to correct the wavefront in the near…
Adaptive optics (AO) restore the angular resolution of ground-based telescopes, but at the cost of delivering a time- and space-varying point spread function (PSF) with a complex shape. PSF knowledge is crucial for breaking existing limits…
The Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT) has been designed to include an adaptive optics system and associated laser guide star (LGS) facility to correct for the image distortion due to Earth's atmospheric turbulence and achieve diffraction-limited…
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 Laser Guide Star Facility for the VLT will be commissioned during 2003. This, of course, can only be the first step towards enhancing the scientific output of the VLT through adaptive optics. So in this contribution we propose the…
Adaptive optics (AO) have been used to correct wavefronts to achieve diffraction limited point spread functions in a broad range of optical applications, prominently ground-based astronomical telescopes operating in near infra-red. While…
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…