Related papers: A Near-Infrared Pyramid Wavefront Sensor for the M…
MAPS, MMT Adaptive optics exoPlanet characterization System, is the upgrade of legacy 6.5m MMT adaptive optics system. It is an NSF MSIP-funded project that includes (i) refurbishing of the MMT Adaptive Secondary Mirror (ASM), (ii) new high…
Extreme adaptive optics (AO) is crucial for enabling the contrasts needed for ground-based high contrast imaging instruments to detect exoplanets. Pushing exoplanet imaging detection sensitivities towards lower mass, closer separations, and…
The concept of pyramid wavefront sensors (PWFS) has been around about a decade by now. However, there is still a great lack of characterizing measurements that allow the best operation of such a system under real life conditions at an…
The pyramid wavefront sensor (P-WFS) has replaced the Shack-Hartmann (SH-) WFS as sensor of choice for high performance adaptive optics (AO) systems in astronomy because of its flexibility in pupil sampling, its dynamic range, and its…
Advanced AO systems will likely utilise Pyramid wave-front sensors (PWFS) over the traditional Shack-Hartmann sensor in the quest for increased sensitivity, peak performance and ultimate contrast. Here, we wish to bring knowledge and…
The MMT Adaptive Optics exoPlanet Characterization System (MAPS) is a comprehensive update to the first generation MMT adaptive optics system (MMTAO), designed to produce a facility class suite of instruments whose purpose is to image…
Pyramid wavefront sensors (PWFSs) are the preferred choice for current and future extreme adaptive optics (XAO) systems. Almost all instruments use the PWFS in its modulated form to mitigate its limited linearity range. However, this…
The future upgrade of Keck II telescope's adaptive optics system will include a pyramid wavefront sensor working in the near-infrared (J and H band). It will benefit from the recently developed avalanche photodiode arrays, specifically the…
Super-resolution (SR) refers to a combination of optical design and signal processing techniques jointly employed to obtain reconstructed wave-fronts at a higher-resolution from multiple low-resolution samples, overcoming the intrinsic…
After 16 years of on-sky operation, Subaru Telescope's facility adaptive optics AO188 is getting several major upgrades to become the extreme-AO AO3000 (3000 actuators in the pupil compared to 188 previously). AO3000 will provide…
Due to their high frame rates, high sensitivity, low noise, and low dark current, SAPHIRA detectors provide new capabilities for astronomical observations. The SAPHIRA detector is a 320x256@24 $\mu$m pixel HgCdTe linear avalanche photodiode…
With the commissioning of the refurbished adaptive secondary mirror (ASM) for the 6.5-meter MMT Observatory under way, special consideration had to be made to properly calibrate the mirror response functions to generate an interaction…
The next generation of giant ground and space telescopes will have the light-collecting power to detect and characterize potentially habitable terrestrial exoplanets using high-contrast imaging for the first time. This will only be…
We propose a new type of Wave Front Sensor (WFS) derived from the Pyramid WFS (PWFS). This new WFS, called the Flattened Pyramid-WFS (FPWFS), has a reduced Pyramid angle in order to optically overlap the four pupil images into an unique…
The Narrow Field InfraRed Adaptive Optics System (NFIRAOS) for the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT) will use a natural guide star (NGS) Pyramid Wavefront Sensor (PWFS). A 32-mm diameter Fast Steering Mirror (FSM) is used to modulate the…
SAXO+ is a planned enhancement of the existing SAXO, the VLT/ SPHERE adaptive optics system, deployed on ESO's Very Large Telescope. This upgrade is designed to significantly enhance the instrument's capacity to detect and analyze young…
The MMT Adaptive optics exoPlanet characterization System (MAPS) is currently in its engineering phase, operating on-sky at the MMT Telescope on Mt. Hopkins in southern Arizona. The MAPS Adaptive Secondary Mirror's actuators are controlled…
Adaptive optics (AO) is a technique to improve the resolution of ground-based telescopes by correcting, in real-time, optical aberrations due to atmospheric turbulence and the telescope itself. With the rise of Giant Segmented Mirror…
The sensitivity of the the pyramid wavefront sensor (PyWFS) has made it a popular choice for astronomical adaptive optics (AAO) systems, and it is at its most sensitive when it is used without modulation of the input beam. In non-modulated…
With its high sensitivity, the Pyramid wavefront sensor (PyWFS) is becoming an advantageous sensor for astronomical adaptive optics (AO) systems. However, this sensor exhibits significant non-linear behaviours leading to challenging AO…