Related papers: Multi-Conjugate Adaptive Optics with two Deformabl…
Integral field spectrographs are major instruments to study the mechanisms involved in the formation and the evolution of early galaxies. When combined with multi-object spectroscopy, those spectrographs can behave as machines used to…
Several telescopes include large Deformable Mirrors (DM) located directly inside the telescope. These adaptive telescopes trigger new constraints for the calibration of the Adaptive Optics (AO) systems as they usually offer no access to an…
Astronomical adaptive optics systems with open-loop deformable mirror control have recently come on-line. In these systems, the deformable mirror surface is not included in the wavefront sensor paths, and so changes made to the deformable…
The detectors of the laser interferometer gravitational-wave observatory (LIGO) are broadly limited by the quantum noise and rely on the injection of squeezed states of light to achieve their full sensitivity. Squeezing improvement is…
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…
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…
We present the novel design, laboratory verification, and on-sky performance of our advanced triplet atmospheric dispersion corrector (ADC), an important component of the Magellan Adaptive Optics system (MagAO), which recently achieved…
MAORY is the adaptive optics module for ELT providing two gravity invariant ports with the same optical quality for two different client instruments. It enable high angular resolution observations in the near infrared over a large field of…
An Adaptive secondary mirror (ASM) allows for the integration of adaptive optics (AO) into the telescope itself. Adaptive secondary mirrors, based on hybrid variable reluctance (HVR) actuator technology, developed by TNO, provide a…
Adaptive (or deformable) mirrors are widely used as wavefront correctors in adaptive optics systems. The optical calibration of an adaptive mirror is a fundamental step during its life-cycle: the process is in facts required to compute a…
Bright single and binary stars were observed at the 4.1-m telescope with a fast electron-multiplication camera in the regime of partial turbulence correction by the visible-light adaptive optics system. We compare the angular resolution…
We present a promising approach to the extremely fast sensing and correction of small wavefront errors in adaptive optics systems. As our algorithm's computational complexity is roughly proportional to the number of actuators, it is…
Direct imaging of exoplanets requires very high contrast levels, which are obtained using coronagraphs. But residual quasi-static aberrations create speckles in the focal plane downstream of the coronagraph which mask the planet. This…
The Magellan Adaptive Secondary AO system, scheduled for first light in the fall of 2011, will be able to simultaneously perform diffraction limited AO science in both the mid-IR, using the BLINC/MIRAC4 10\{mu}m camera, and in the visible…
We present two concepts of deformable mirror to compensate for first order optical aberrations. Deformation systems are designed using both elasticity theory and Finite Element Analysis in order to minimize the number of actuators. Starting…
High-Performance Adaptive Optics systems are rapidly spreading as useful applications in the fields of astronomy, ophthalmology, and telecommunications. This technology is critical to enable coronagraphic direct imaging of exoplanets…
Observational tests of ground layer wavefront recovery have been made in open loop using a constellation of four natural guide stars at the 1.55 m Kuiper telescope in Arizona. Such tests explore the effectiveness of wide-field seeing…
Off-axis parabolic mirrors (OAPs) are occasionally desirable for specialized applications, but are known to introduce field-dependent astigmatic aberrations. In an experiment where optical tweezers are formed by OAPs, another OAP is added…
MAORY is the Multi-conjugate Adaptive Optics RelaY for the European ELT aimed at providing a 1 arcmin corrected field to MICADO, a near-infrared spectro-imager with a focus on astrometry. In this paper we re-view the main requirements and…
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…