ARGOS at the LBT. Binocular laser guided ground layer adaptive optics
Abstract
Having completed its commissioning phase, the Advanced Rayleigh guided Ground-layer adaptive Optics System (ARGOS) facility is coming online for scientific observations at the Large Binocular Telescope (LBT). With six Rayleigh laser guide stars in two constellations and the corresponding wavefront sensing, ARGOS corrects the ground-layer distortions for both LBT 8.4m eyes with their adaptive secondary mirrors. Under regular observing conditions, this set-up delivers a point spread function (PSF) size reduction by a factor of ~2--3 compared to a seeing-limited operation. With the two LUCI infrared imaging and multi-object spectroscopy instruments receiving the corrected images, observations in the near-infrared can be performed at high spatial and spectral resolution. We discuss the final ARGOS technical set-up and the adaptive optics performance. We show that imaging cases with ground-layer adaptive optics (GLAO) are enhancing several scientific programmes, from cluster colour magnitude diagrams and Milky Way embedded star formation, to nuclei of nearby galaxies or extragalactic lensing fields. In the unique combination of ARGOS with the multi-object near-infrared spectroscopy available in LUCI over a 4x4 arcmin field of view, the first scientific observations have been performed on local and high-z objects. Those high spatial and spectral resolution observations demonstrate the capabilities now at hand with ARGOS at the LBT.
Cite
@article{arxiv.1806.09938,
title = {ARGOS at the LBT. Binocular laser guided ground layer adaptive optics},
author = {S. Rabien and R. Angel and L. Barl and U. Beckmann and L. Busoni and S. Belli and M. Bonaglia and J. Borelli and J. Brynnel and P. Buschkamp and A. Cardwel and A. Contursi and C. Connot and R. Davies and M. Deysenroth and O. Durney and F. Eisenhauer and M. Elberich and S. Esposito and B. Frye and W. Gaessler and V. Gasho and H. Gemperlein and R. Genzel and I. Y. Georgiev and R. Green and M. Hart and C. Kohlmann and M. Kulas and M. Lefebvre and T. Mazzoni and J. Noenickx and T. Ott and G. Orban de Xivry and D. Peter and A. Puglisi and Y. Qin and A. Quirrenbach and W. Raab and M. Rademacher and G. Rahmer and H. W. Rix and M. Rosensteiner and P. Salinari and C. Schwab and A. Sivitilli and M. Steinmetz and J. Storm and C. Veillet and G. Weigelt and J. Ziegleder},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1806.09938},
year = {2019}
}
Comments
21 pages, 28 figures