Characterisation of the Optical Turbulence at Siding Spring

Goodwin, Michael; Jenkins, Charles; Lambert, Andrew

doi:10.1017/pasa.2012.009

Cited by 8 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 25 publications

(68 reference statements)

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“…11 The La Palma statistics are from the Stereo-SCIDAR instrument from 56 nights in the summer between 2014 and 2019 the Durham University archive. 30,31 The literature values are generally from short campaigns and are presented for White Sands, 32 Big Bear observatory, 33 Côte d'Azur Observatory (OCA), 34 Tenerife, 35 Siding Spring Observatory (SSO) 36,37 and Cerro Pachon. 38 The model and the measurements tend to agree well for sites with characteristically weaker turbulence (for example, Paranal and Hawaii) and characteristically stronger turbulence (for example, White Sands, Big Bear or OCA).…”

Section: Data Availabilitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Global atmospheric turbulence forecasting for free-space optical communications

Osborn

Communal²,

Jabet³

2023

Free-Space Laser Communications XXXV

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The optical turbulence in the Earth's atmosphere is a major limitation to free-space optical communications. It is therefore critical that we are able to model and forecast realistic atmospheric optical turbulence conditions for site selection, instrument development, instrument performance validation and network switching. Here, we present global maps of optical turbulence strength and associated parameters (Fried parameter, isoplanatic angle, coherence time and Rytov variance), from a turbulence forecasting tool. These maps can be used by the community to understand the expected performance of free-space optical systems anywhere in the world, day and night. These maps also demonstrate that optical turbulence can be modelled and visualised in the same manner as other aspects of the Earth's weather system such as wind, rain or temperature, opening the door for more advanced turbulence forecasting functionality. We show global averages, examples of temporal sequences and more detailed analysis from some example sites.

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Section: Data Availabilitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Global atmospheric turbulence forecasting for free-space optical communications

Osborn

Communal²,

Jabet³

2023

Free-Space Laser Communications XXXV

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“…(2) The atmospheric seeing of 1 arcsec (note: mirror/dome component removed) is the best 30% of seeing conditions measured at Siding Spring Observatory, Australia [15].…”

Section: Simulationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Miniaturized Shack-Hartmann wavefront sensors for starbugs

Goodwin

Richards

Zheng

et al. 2014

Advances in Optical and Mechanical Technologies for Telescopes and Instrumentation

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The ability to position multiple miniaturized wavefront sensors precisely over large focal surfaces are advantageous to multi-object adaptive optics. The Australian Astronomical Observatory (AAO) has prototyped a compact and lightweight Shack-Hartmann wavefront-sensor that fits into a standard Starbug parallel fibre positioning robot. Each device makes use of a polymer coherent fibre imaging bundle to relay an image produced by a microlens array placed at the telescope focal plane to a re-imaging camera mounted elsewhere. The advantages of the polymer fibre bundle are its high-fill factor, high-throughput, low weight, and relatively low cost. Multiple devices can also be multiplexed to a single lownoise camera for cost efficiencies per wavefront sensor. The use of fibre bundles also opens the possibility of applications such as telescope field acquisition, guiding, and seeing monitors to be positioned by Starbugs. We present the design aspects, simulations and laboratory test results.

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“…A 2013 site characterisation study of SSO gave a median seeing value of 1.2 arcsec 12 and the seeing from the AAT is reported as 1.5 arcsec 13 . Several studies have contributed to the knowledge of the seeing conditions in the dome, both quantitative and qualitative.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Dome seeing analysis of the Anglo-Australian Telescope

Munro

Hansen

Travouillon

et al. 2023

J. Astron. Telesc. Instrum. Syst.

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.Dome seeing is an often overlooked avenue for seeing improvement for a telescope. Because most existing telescope domes have not been characterized for turbulence, there is an opportunity to improve the overall seeing by minimizing the dome contribution, thereby optimizing scientific productivity and operations. A dome turbulence sensor has recorded data in the Anglo-Australian Telescope (AAT) over the past year. The instrument consists of a collimated laser beam that propagates (and double passes) between the AAT’s primary mirror box and a flat mirror on the secondary strut. The angle-of-arrival fluctuations are used to derive a dome-seeing-proxy in arcsec. We found the dominant effects to be the temperature gradients and wind speed. Convection conditions are considerably more detrimental to the dome-seeing-proxy than thermal inversion conditions. Unlike other large telescopes, there is no discernible relationship between the dome-seeing-proxy and relative wind direction. Concerning telescope operations, it would be worth considering lowering the air-conditioning set point temperature to include a higher proportion of observations under thermal inversion. Nevertheless, this must be carefully weighed with the risk of condensation in the dome, a major concern for a site with frequent high relative humidity.

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Characterisation of the Optical Turbulence at Siding Spring

Cited by 8 publications

References 25 publications

Global atmospheric turbulence forecasting for free-space optical communications

Global atmospheric turbulence forecasting for free-space optical communications

Miniaturized Shack-Hartmann wavefront sensors for starbugs

Dome seeing analysis of the Anglo-Australian Telescope

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