On-going and future AO activities on Subaru Telescope

Abstract

This paper presents the overview of on-going and future adaptive optics (AO) activities at the Subaru telescope on the top of Maunakea in Hawaii. Currently, two AO systems are running at the Subaru telescope: AO188, a facility single-conjugate AO system with a bimorph deformable mirror and a curvature wavefront sensor with 188 elements, and SCExAO, an additional extreme AO system operating behind AO188 and specialized for exoplanet sciences. We recently started AO188 upgrade project to improve its performance for the next 5-10 years, which will also help improving SCExAO performance. These upgrades are in line with a development for the ULTIMATE-Subaru ground layer AO system.

Current status of the laser guide star upgrade at Subaru Telescope

“…Our AO system is currently under a major upgrade process (Ref. 4,5), and a laser upgrade is one of the initial steps toward the ultimate AO facility at Subaru (see §3 for future plans).…”

A conceptual design study for Subaru ULTIMATE GLAO

“…In addition to the conceptual design, we are also conducting the upgrade of the existing facility AO system (AO188) at the Subaru telescope to develop fundamental technologies for the ULTIMATE-Subaru GLAO system. 16 Currently, we are developing a new real-time control system for AO188 that will be able to use for the future GLAO system. 17 The TOPTICA fiber laser (589 nm) system, which will be used for the GLAO system as well, has been delivered to the Subaru telescope for upgrading the current LGS facility used Proc.…”