Related papers: Quantifying telescope phase discontinuities extern…
The low wind effect (LWE) refers to a characteristic set of quasi-static wavefront aberrations seen consistently by the SPHERE instrument when dome-level wind speeds drop below 3 m/s. This effect produces bright low-order speckles in the…
We investigate the focal plane wavefront sensing technique, known as Phase Diversity, at the scientific focal plane of a segmented mirror telescope with an adaptive optics (AO) system. We specifically consider an optical system imaging a…
The Low Wind Effect (LWE) refers to a phenomenon that occurs when the wind speed inside a telescope dome drops below $3$m/s creating a temperature gradient near the telescope spider. This produces phase discontinuities in the pupil plane…
We extend our previous demonstration of the first on-sky primary mirror segment closed-loop control on Keck using a vector-Zernike wavefront sensor (vZWFS), which improved the Strehl ratio on the NIRC2 science camera by up to 10 percentage…
As the Extremely Large Telescope (ELT) approaches operational status, optimising its imaging performance is critical. A differential piston, arising from either the adaptive optics (AO) control loop, thermomechanical effects, or other…
Recent quasar spectroscopy from the VLT and Keck telescopes suggests that fundamental constants may not actually be constant. To better confirm or refute this result, systematic errors between telescopes must be minimized. We present a new…
For high-contrast imaging (HCI) systems, such as VLT/SPHERE, the performance of the system at small angular separations is contaminated by the wind-driven halo in the science image. This halo is a result of the servo-lag error in the…
High-contrast imaging (HCI) observations of exoplanets can be limited by the island effect (IE). On the current generation of telescopes, the IE becomes a severe problem when the ground wind speed is below a few meters per second. This is…
Modeling the optical point spread function (PSF) is particularly challenging for adaptive optics (AO)-assisted observations owing to the its complex shape and spatial variations. We aim to (i) exhaustively demonstrate the accuracy of a…
The phase diversity technique is a useful tool to measure and pre-compensate for quasi-static aberrations, in particular non-common path aberrations, in an adaptive optics corrected imaging system. In this paper, we propose and validate by…
Here we present a laboratory analysis of the use of a 19-core photonic lantern (PL) in combination with neural network (NN) algorithms as an efficient focal plane wavefront sensor (FP-WFS) for adaptive optics (AO), measuring wavefront…
Images obtained with single-conjugate adaptive optics (AO) show spatial variation of the point spread function (PSF) due to both atmospheric anisoplanatism and instrumental aberrations. The poor knowledge of the PSF across the field of view…
Advanced wavefront sensors (WFS) are essential for enabling new science cases for telescopes that utilize adaptive optics (AO) systems. While complex field WFS -- those that estimate the electric field phase and amplitude through…
We present the first on-sky segmented primary mirror closed-loop piston control using a Zernike wavefront sensor (ZWFS) installed on the Keck II telescope. Segment co-phasing errors are a primary contributor to contrast limits on Keck and…
Strong turbulence conditions create amplitude aberrations through the effects of near-field diffraction. When integrated over long optical path lengths, amplitude aberrations (seen as scintillation) can nullify local areas in the recorded…
Quasi-static aberrations in coronagraphic systems are the ultimate limitation to the capabilities of exoplanet imagers both ground-based and space-based. These aberrations - which can be due to various causes such as optics alignment or…
Two-wavelength adaptive optics (AO) systems sense turbulence-induced wavefront distortions using an artificial beacon or natural guidestar at one wavelength, while correcting and possibly transmitting at another. Although most existing AO…
In astronomy and microscopy, distortions in the wavefront affect the dynamic range of a high contrast imaging system. These aberrations are either imposed by a turbulent medium such as the atmosphere, by static or thermal aberrations in the…
The Earth's atmosphere is comprised of turbulent layers that result in speckled and blurry images from ground-based visible and infrared observations. Adaptive Optics (AO) systems are employed to measure the perturbed wavefront with a…
The low wind effect is a phenomenon disturbing the phase of the wavefront in the pupil of a large telescope obstructed by spiders, in the absence of wind. It can be explained by the radiative cooling of the spiders, creating air temperature…