Related papers: Laser Guide Star for 3.6m and 8m telescopes: Perfo…
The performance of an adaptive optics (AO) system on a 100m diameter ground based telescope working in the visible range of the spectrum is computed using an analytical approach. The target Strehl ratio of 60% is achieved at 0.5um with a…
The sodium laser guide star adaptive optics system ALFA, which is installed at the Calar Alto 3.5-m telescope, has been undergoing an intensive optimisation phase. Observations using natural guide stars that are presented in this paper,…
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…
Both lucky imaging techniques and adaptive optics require natural guide stars, limiting sky coverage, even when laser guide stars are used. Lucky imaging techniques become less successful on larger telescopes unless adaptive optics is used,…
We present an analytical derivation of the on-axis performance of Adaptive Optics systems using a given number of guide stars of arbitrary altitude, distributed at arbitrary angular positions in the sky. The expressions of the residual…
Optical interferometry has been successful at achieving milliarcsecond resolution on bright stars. Imaging performance can improve greatly by increasing the number of baselines, which has motivated proposals to build large (~ 100 m) optical…
We describe the results from a new instrument which combines Lucky Imaging and Adaptive Optics to give the first routine direct diffraction-limited imaging in the visible on a 5m telescope. With fast image selection behind the Palomar AO…
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…
We investigate the use of ultra-narrow band interference filters to enable daytime use of sodium laser guide star adaptive optics systems. Filter performance is explored using theoretical and vendor supplied filter transmission profiles, a…
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…
We describe results from the first astronomical adaptive optics system to use multiple laser guide stars, located at the 6.5-m MMT telescope in Arizona. Its initial operational mode, ground-layer adaptive optics (GLAO), provides uniform…
Most current astronomical adaptive optics (AO) systems rely on the availability of a bright star to measure the distortion of the incoming wavefront. Replacing the guide star with an artificial laser beacon alleviates this dependency on…
Using the latest generation of adaptive optics imaging systems together with laser guide stars on 8m-class telescopes, we are finally revealing the previously-hidden population of supernovae in starburst galaxies. Finding these supernovae…
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…
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…
Large telescope's adaptive optics (AO) system requires one or several bright artificial laser guide stars to improve its sky coverage. The recent advent of high power sodium laser is perfect for such application. However, besides the output…
The application of sodium laser guide star is the key difference between modern adaptive optics system and traditional adaptive optics system. Especially in system like multi-conjugate adaptive optics, sodium laser guide star asterism which…
One of the key-points for the future developments of the multiconjugate adaptive optics for the astronomy is the availability of the correction for a large fraction of the sky. The sky coverage represents one of the limits of the existing…
Laser guide stars created by Rayleigh scattering provide a reasonable means to monitor atmospheric wavefront distortions for real-time correction by adaptive optics systems. Because of the $\lambda^{-4}$ wavelength dependence of Rayleigh…
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.…