Related papers: Characterizing the Adaptive Optics Off-Axis Point-…
Cosmic shear requires high precision measurement of galaxy shapes in the presence of the observational Point Spread Function (PSF) that smears out the image. The PSF must therefore be known for each galaxy to a high accuracy. However, for…
We review the science case for the Laser Guide Star system being built for the William Herschel Telescope (WHT) on La Palma. When used in combination with the NAOMI Adaptive Optics system and the OASIS visible-wavelength Integral Field…
We are developing the Laser Guide Star Adaptive Optics (LGS/AO188) system for the Subaru Telescope at Mauna Kea, Hawaii. This system utilizes a combination of an all-solid-state mode-locked sum-frequency generation (SFG) laser (1.7-GHz…
We present the results from adaptive optics (AO) assisted imaging in the Ks band of an area of 15 arcmin^2 for SWAN (Survey of a Wide Area with NACO). We derive the high resolution near-IR morphology of ~400 galaxies up to Ks~23.5 in the…
Adaptive optics (AO) systems and image reconstruction algorithms are indispensable tools when it comes to high-precision astrometry. In this paper, we analyze the potential of combining both techniques, i.e. by applying image reconstruction…
Residual speckles in adaptive optics (AO) images represent a well-known limitation on the achievement of the contrast needed for faint source detection. Speckles in AO imagery can be the result of either residual atmospheric aberrations,…
We have created a new autonomous laser-guide-star adaptive-optics (AO) instrument on the 60-inch (1.5-m) telescope at Palomar Observatory called Robo-AO. The instrument enables diffraction-limited resolution observing in the visible and…
Predictive wavefront control is an important and rapidly developing field of adaptive optics (AO). Through the prediction of future wavefront effects, the inherent AO system servo-lag caused by the measurement, computation, and application…
In this paper we present the Adaptive Optics Lucky Imager (AOLI), a state-of-the-art instrument which makes use of two well proved techniques for extremely high spatial resolution with ground-based telescopes: Lucky Imaging (LI) and…
One of the possible approaches to detecting optical counterparts of GRBs requires monitoring large parts of the sky. This idea has gained some instrumental support in recent years, such as with the "Pi of the Sky" project. The broad sky…
The effects of anisoplanatism on the adaptive optics point spread function are investigated. A model is derived that combines observations of the guide star with an analytic formulation of anisoplanatism to generate predictions for the…
Adaptive optics (AO) system performance is improved using post-processing techniques, such as point spread function (PSF) deconvolution. The PSF estimation involves characterization of the different wavefront (WF) error sources in the AO…
Ground-based astronomy is severely limited by the atmospheric turbulence, resulting in a large Point-Spread-Function (PSF) and poor imaging resolution. Even imaging with Adaptive Optics (AO) cannot completely correct the aberrated…
The performance of adaptive optics systems employing sodium laser guide stars can be improved by continuously monitoring the vertical density structure of mesospheric sodium along the line of sight. We demonstrate that sodium density…
The Planetary Systems Imager (PSI) is a proposed instrument for the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT) that provides an extreme adaptive optics (AO) correction to a multi-wavelength instrument suite optimized for high contrast science. PSI's…
Sparse aperture masking (SAM) interferometry combined with Adaptive Optics (AO) is a technique that is uniquely suited to investigate structures near the diffraction limit of large telescopes. The strengths of the technique are a robust…
Reaching the high angular resolution and contrast level desired for exoplanetary science requires us to equip large telescopes with extreme adaptive optics (XAO) systems to compensate for the effect of the atmospheric turbulence at a very…
During a tracking mode observation, every telescope with an alt-azimuthal mount shows a rotation in the field of view (FoV) due to the diurnal motion of the Earth. The angular extension of the rotation depends mainly on the time length of…
In this paper, we present a first comparison of different Adaptive Optics (AO) concepts to reach a given scientific specification for 3D spectroscopy on Extremely Large Telescope (ELT). We consider that a range of 30%-50% of Ensquarred…
Using an observational derived model optical turbulence profile (model-OTP) we have investigated the performance of Adaptive Optics (AO) at Siding Spring Observatory (SSO), Australia. The simulations cover the performance for AO techniques…