Martin Dimmler

The VLTI fringe sensors: FINITO and PRIMA FSU

FINITO is the first generation VLTI fringe sensor, optimised for three beam observations, recently installed at Paranal and currently used for VLTI optimisation. The PRIMA FSU is the second generation, optimised for astrometry in dual-feed mode, currently in construction. We discuss the constraints of fringe tracking at VLTI, the basic functions required for stabilised interferometric observations, and their different implementation in the two instruments, with remarks on the most critical technical aspects. We provide an estimate of the expected performance and describe some of their possible observing and calibration modes, with reference to the current scientific combiners.

ESO VLT laser guide star facility

We report in this paper on the design and progress of the ESO Laser Guide Star Facility. The project will create a user facility embedded in UT4, to produce in the Earths Mesosphere Laser Guide Stars, which extend the sky coverage of Adaptive Optics systems on the VLT UT4 telescope. Embedded into the project are provisions for multiple LGS to cope with second generation MCAO instruments.

VLTI technical advances: present and future

The Very Large Telescope Interferometer (VLTI) on Cerro Paranal (2635 m) in Northern Chile reached a major milestone in September 2003 when the mid infrared instrument MIDI was offered for scientific observations to the community. This was only nine months after MIDI had recorded first fringes. In the meantime, the near infrared instrument AMBER saw first fringes in March 2004, and it is planned to offer AMBER in September 2004. The large number of subsystems that have been installed in the last two years - amongst them adaptive optics for the 8-m Unit Telescopes (UT), the first 1.8-m Auxiliary Telescope (AT), the fringe tracker FINITO and three more Delay Lines for a total of six, only to name the major ones - will be described in this article. We will also discuss the next steps of the VLTI mainly concerned with the dual feed system PRIMA and we will give an outlook to possible future extensions.

E-ELT primary mirror control system

During the past year the control of the 42m segmented primary mirror of the E-ELT has been studied. This paper presents the progress in the areas of M1 figure control and control hardware implementation. The critical issue of coupling through the supporting structure has been considered in the controller design. Different control strategies have been investigated and from a tradeoff analysis modal control is proposed as a solution addressing the topics of wind rejection as well as sensor noise in the presence of cross-coupling through the supporting structure. Various implementations of the M1 Control System have been studied and a centralized architecture has been selected as baseline. This approach offers maximum flexibility for further iterations. The controller design and main parts of the control system are described.

First light of the ESO laser guide star facility

Two teams of scientists and engineers at Max Planck Institut fuer Extraterrestrische Physik and at the European Southern Observatory have joined forces to design, build and install the Laser Guide Star Facility for the VLT. The Laser Guide Star Facility has now been completed and installed on the VLT Yepun telescope at Cerro Paranal. In this paper we report on the first light and first results from the Commissioning of the LGSF.

The VLT laser guide star facility

We report on the ongoing VLT Laser Guide Star Facility project, which will allow the ESO UT4 telescope to produce an artificial reference star for the Adaptive Optics systems NAOS-CONICA and SINFONI. A custom developed dye laser producing >10W CW at 589nm is installed on-board of the UT4 telescope, then relayed by means of a single mode optical fiber behind the secondary mirror, where a 500mm diameter lightweight, f/1 launch telescope is projecting the laser beam at 90 km altitude. We described the design tradeoffs and provide some details of the chosen subsystems. This paper is an update including subsystems results, to be read together with our previous paper on LGSF design description.

Field stabilization (tip/tilt control) of E-ELT

The image motion (tip/tilt) of the telescope is dominated by two types of perturbations: a) atmospheric b) wind load. The wind load effect on E-ELT can be an order of magnitude higher than the atmospheric effect. Part of the image motion due to the wind load on the telescope structure is corrected by the main axis control system (mainly large amplitude, low frequency errors). The residual tip/tilt is reduced by M5 and M4 mirror units. M5 with its large stroke and relative low bandwidth (higher than main axes) corrects for large amplitude and low frequency part of the image motion and M4 unit takes the higher frequency parts with smaller stroke availability. In this paper the two stage control strategy of the E-ELT field stabilization is introduced. The performance of the telescope due to the wind load and in the presence of the major imperfections in the control system is presented.

Acceleration feedback control on an AT

he VLT observatory operated by ESO is located on Cerro Paranal in Chile and consists of four identical 8-m telescopes and four 1.8-m VLTI Auxiliary telescopes (ATs). In order to further improve the tracking axes performance of telescopes regarding wind rejection, different control techniques have been evaluated. Ongoing investigation and studies show that by measuring the acceleration and using that in appropriate control strategy the performance of telescope tracking in face of external perturbation can be improved. The acceleration signal contains the non filtered information (advanced phase compared to velocity and position) of the perturbation load, e.g. wind load. As a result the reaction of the control is faster and hence the perturbation rejection is more efficient. In this paper, two acceleration feedback techniques are discussed and the results of the measurement test on an AT telescope are presented.

Perturbation rejection control strategy for OWL

The control system of the ESO 100m telescope (OWL) has to reject slow and fast perturbations in several subsystems. In this paper we focus on the wind rejection control strategies for two subsystems: the main axes and the segmented mirror. It is shown that facing the same disturbance the 2 control designs have to deal with completely different problems: control of a flexible SISO (Single input-Single output) system for the altitude axis versus a dynamically coupled MIMO (Multi input-Multi output) system for the segmented mirror. For both subsystems feasible solutions are given.

Recent progress at the Very Large Telescope Interferometer

The ESO Very Large Telescope Interferometer (VLTI) is the first general-user interferometer that offers near- and mid-infrared long-baseline interferometric observations in service and visitor mode to the whole astronomical community. Over the last two years, the VLTI has moved into its regular science operation mode with the two science instruments, MIDI and AMBER, both on all four 8m Unit Telescopes and the first three 1.8m Auxiliary Telescopes. We are currently devoting up to half of the available time for science, the rest is used for characterization and improvement of the existing system, plus additional installations. Since the first fringes with the VLTI on a star were obtained on March 17, 2001, there have been five years of scientific observations, with the different instruments, different telescopes and baselines. These observations have led so far to more than 40 refereed publications. We describe the current status of the VLTI and give an outlook for its near future.