Adaptive optics program at TMT

From National Research Council Canada

DOIResolve DOI: https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2056863
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Name affiliation
  1. National Research Council of Canada. National Science Infrastructure
FormatText, Article
Proceedings titleAdaptive Optics Systems IV
Series titleProceedings of SPIE; no. 9148
ConferenceAdaptive Optics Systems IV, June 22-27, 2014
ISSN0277-786X
1996-756X
ISBN9780819496164
Article number91480X
SubjectAstronomy; Deformation; Laser mirrors; Light; Mirrors; Optical testing; Optical transfer function; Stars; Wavefronts; Design and Development; Diffraction limited; Extremely Large Telescopes; High contrast imaging; Point spread function reconstruction; Processing architectures; Real time controllers; Wave front sensors; Adaptive optics
Abstract
The TMT first light Adaptive Optics (AO) facility consists of the Narrow Field Infra-Red AO System (NFIRAOS) and the associated Laser Guide Star Facility (LGSF). NFIRAOS is a 60 × 60 laser guide star (LGS) multi-conjugate AO (MCAO) system, which provides uniform, diffraction-limited performance in the J, H, and K bands over 17-30 arc sec diameter fields with 50 per cent sky coverage at the galactic pole, as required to support the TMT science cases. NFIRAOS includes two deformable mirrors, six laser guide star wavefront sensors, and three low-order, infrared, natural guide star wavefront sensors within each client instrument. The first light LGSF system includes six sodium lasers required to generate the NFIRAOS laser guide stars. In this paper, we will provide an update on the progress in designing, modeling and validating the TMT first light AO systems and their components over the last two years. This will include pre-final design and prototyping activities for NFIRAOS, preliminary design and prototyping activities for the LGSF, design and prototyping for the deformable mirrors, fabrication and tests for the visible detectors, benchmarking and comparison of different algorithms and processing architecture for the Real Time Controller (RTC) and development and tests of prototype candidate lasers. Comprehensive and detailed AO modeling is continuing to support the design and development of the first light AO facility. Main modeling topics studied during the last two years include further studies in the area of wavefront error budget, sky coverage, high precision astrometry for the galactic center and other observations, high contrast imaging with NFIRAOS and its first light instruments, Point Spread Function (PSF) reconstruction for LGS MCAO, LGS photon return and sophisticated low order mode temporal filtering.
Publication date
PublisherSPIE
LanguageEnglish
Peer reviewedYes
NPARC number21275601
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Record created2015-07-14
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