Tomographic reconstruction of stellar wavefronts from multiple laser guide stars

Baranec, Christoph; Lloyd‐Hart, Michael; Milton, N. Mark; Stalcup, Thomas; Snyder, Mark J.; Angel, Roger

doi:10.1117/12.672529

Cited by 10 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 24 publications

(26 reference statements)

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…For astronomical Adaptive Optics (4,5,6,7), one or more Laser Guide Stars (either Na LGS or Raleigh Lasers (5) ) are used to determine the 3-D structure ofdistortions in the atmosphere. Ground Layer Adaptive Optics (GLAO) (6) produces a reduction of stellar wavefront aberration close to the ground.…”

Section: Discussion Summary and Conclusionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Laser Guide Stars (LGS) (5) , Ground Layer Adaptive Optics (GLAO) (6) and Laser Tomography Adaptive Optics (LTAO) (7) are being developed to achieve a 3-D structure of atmospheric turbulence. Compensating phase is applied to 2-D Deformable Mirrors (DM) (1, 16, 1 7) to deliver a diffraction limited field.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Adaptive Optics serves two very distinct communities: military facilities (which use the Laser Guide Stars for tracking satellites) and astronomical observatories which use Laser Guide Stars to correct atmospheric distortion in astronomical images (4,5,6,7). Both communities use Laser Guide Stars but the requirements for Wavefront Control for low earth orbit (military) versus astronomical observatories (4,5,6,7) are different: satellite tracking versus astronomy, in scale, in resolution, in complexity and size of facilities required.…”

mentioning

confidence: 97%

“…Both communities use Laser Guide Stars but the requirements for Wavefront Control for low earth orbit (military) versus astronomical observatories (4,5,6,7) are different: satellite tracking versus astronomy, in scale, in resolution, in complexity and size of facilities required.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

See 3 more Smart Citations

Application of adaptive wavelets for laser beam distortion compensation for astronomical adaptive optics

Jones¹

2007

SPIE Proceedings

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Section: Discussion Summary and Conclusionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

mentioning

confidence: 97%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Application of adaptive wavelets for laser beam distortion compensation for astronomical adaptive optics

Jones¹

2007

SPIE Proceedings

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

“…34 The principle of tomographic reconstruction using laser guide stars has been demonstrated on the sky. 35 In an experiement on the 6.5m MMT, five Rayleigh beacons were propagated and the wavefronts measured using five dynamically refocussed Shack-Hartmann wavefront sensors. The wavefront reconstruction was compared to that obtained on a simultaneously measured natural guide star.…”

Section: Laser Tomographymentioning

confidence: 99%

Review of astronomical adaptive optics systems and plans

Devaney

2007

SPIE Proceedings

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Adaptive Optics systems are now working successfully on all major optical telescopes. The sky coverage of these systems is severely limited by the need for bright guide stars, and Laser guide stars have been under development since they were proposed in the 1980s. Laser guide star assisted AO has recently been commissioned at major observatories, and is finally starting to perform well enough, and reliably enough to provide for astrophysical results. The state of the art in astronomical adaptive optics is reviewed here, with emphasis on laser guide star systems. The prospects and challenges of adaptive optics and laser guide stars on the next generation of 'Extremely Large Telescopes' are also examined.

show abstract

Integrated Laboratory Demonstrations of Multi-Object Adaptive Optics on a Simulated 10 Meter Telescope at Visible Wavelengths

Ammons¹,

Johnson²,

Laag³

et al. 2010

PUBL ASTRON SOC PAC

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

One important frontier for astronomical adaptive optics (AO) involves methods such as Multi-Object AO and Multi-Conjugate AO that have the potential to give a significantly larger field of view than conventional AO techniques. A second key emphasis over the next decade will be to push astronomical AO to visible wavelengths. We have conducted the first laboratory simulations of wide-field, laser guide star adaptive optics at visible wavelengths on a 10-meter-class telescope. These experiments, utilizing the UCO/Lick Observatory's Multi-Object / Laser Tomography Adaptive Optics (MOAO/LTAO) testbed, demonstrate new techniques in wavefront sensing and control that are crucial to future on-sky MOAO systems. We (1) test and confirm the feasibility of highly accurate atmospheric tomography with laser guide stars, (2) demonstrate key innovations allowing open-loop operation of Shack-Hartmann wavefront sensors (with errors of ∼ 30 nm) as will be needed for MOAO, and (3) build a complete error budget model describing system performance. The AO system maintains a performance of 32.4% Strehl on-axis, with 24.5% and 22.6% at 10. ′′ and 15. ′′ , respectively, at a science wavelength of 710 nm (R-band) over the equivalent of 0.8 seconds of simulation. The mean ensquared energy on-axis in a 50 milliarcsecond spaxel is 46%. The off-axis Strehls are obtained at radial separations 2-3 times the isoplanatic angle of the atmosphere at 710 nm. The MOAO-corrected field of view is ∼ 25 times larger in area than that limited by anisoplanatism at R-band. The error budget we assemble is composed almost entirely of terms verified through independent, empirical experiments, with minimal parameterization of theoretical models. We find that error terms arising from calibration inaccuracies and optical drift are comparable in magnitude to traditional terms like fitting error and tomographic error. This makes a strong case for implementing additional calibration facilities in future AO systems, including accelerometers on powered optics, 3D turbulators, telescope and LGS simulators, and external calibration ports for deformable mirrors. These laboratory demonstrations add strong credibility to the implementation of on-sky demonstrators of Laser Tomographic Adaptive Optics (LTAO) on 5-10 meter telescopes in the coming years.

show abstract

Tomographic reconstruction of stellar wavefronts from multiple laser guide stars

Cited by 10 publications

References 24 publications

Application of adaptive wavelets for laser beam distortion compensation for astronomical adaptive optics

Application of adaptive wavelets for laser beam distortion compensation for astronomical adaptive optics

Review of astronomical adaptive optics systems and plans

Integrated Laboratory Demonstrations of Multi-Object Adaptive Optics on a Simulated 10 Meter Telescope at Visible Wavelengths

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About