N. A. Dipper

MOAO first on-sky demonstration with CANARY

Context. A new challenging adaptive optics (AO) system, called multi-object adaptive optics (MOAO), has been successfully demonstrated on-sky for the first time at the 4.2 m William Herschel Telescope, Canary Islands, Spain, at the end of September 2010. Aims. This system, called CANARY, is aimed at demonstrating the feasibility of MOAO in preparation of a future multi-object near infra-red (IR) integral field unit spectrograph to equip extremely large telescopes for analysing the morphology and dynamics of high-z galaxies. Methods. CANARY compensates for the atmospheric turbulence with a deformable mirror driven in open-loop and controlled through a tomographic reconstruction by three widely separated off-axis natural guide star (NGS) wavefront sensors, which are in open loop too. We compared the performance of conventional closed-loop AO, MOAO, and ground-layer adaptive optics (GLAO) by analysing both IR images and simultaneous wave-front measurements. Results. In H-band, Strehl ratios of 0.20 are measured with MOAO while achieving 0.25 with closed-loop AO in fairly similar seeing conditions (r 0 ≈ 15 cm at 0.5 μm). As expected, MOAO has performed at an intermediate level between GLAO and closed-loop AO.

First on-sky SCAO validation of full LQG control with vibration mitigation on the CANARY pathfinder

Adaptive optics provides real time correction of wavefront disturbances on ground based telescopes. Optimizing control and performance is a key issue for ever more demanding instruments on ever larger telescopes affected not only by atmospheric turbulence, but also by vibrations, windshake and tracking errors. Linear Quadratic Gaussian control achieves optimal correction when provided with a temporal model of the disturbance. We present in this paper the first on-sky results of a Kalman filter based LQG control with vibration mitigation on the CANARY instrument at the Nasmyth platform of the 4.2-m William Herschel Telescope. The results demonstrate a clear improvement of performance for full LQG compared with standard integrator control, and assess the additional improvement brought by vibration filtering with a tip-tilt model identified from on-sky data, thus validating the strategy retained on the instrument SPHERE at the VLT.

CANARY: the on-sky NGS/LGS MOAO demonstrator for EAGLE

EAGLE is a multi-object 3D spectroscopy instrument currently under design for the 42-metre European Extremely Large Telescope (E-ELT). Precise requirements are still being developed, but it is clear that EAGLE will require (~100 x 100 actuator) adaptive optics correction of ~20 - 60 spectroscopic subfields distributed across a ~5 arcminute diameter field of view. It is very likely that LGS will be required to provide wavefront sensing with the necessary sky coverage. Two alternative adaptive optics implementations are being considered, one of which is Multi-Object Adaptive Optics (MOAO). In this scheme, wavefront tomography is performed using a set of LGS and NGS in either a completely open-loop manner, or in a configuration that is only closed-loop with respect to only one DM, probably the adaptive M4 of the E-ELT. The fine wavefront correction required for each subfield is then applied in a completely open-loop fashion by independent DMs within each separate optical relay. The novelty of this scheme is such that on-sky demonstration is required prior to final construction of an E-ELT instrument. The CANARY project will implement a single channel of an MOAO system on the 4.2m William Herschel Telescope. This will be a comprehensive demonstration, which will be phased to include pure NGS, low-order NGS-LGS and high-order woofer-tweeter NGS-LGS configurations. The LGSs used for these demonstrations will be Rayleigh systems, where the variable range-gate height and extension can be used to simulate many of the LGS effects on the E-ELT. We describe the requirements for the various phases of MOAO demonstration, the corresponding CANARY configurations and capabilities and the current conceptual designs of the various subsystems.

350 GeV gamma rays from AE Aqr

Abstract We report here the results of VHE γ-ray observations made during 1990 and 1991 using the Durham University Mark III and IV VHE γ-ray telescopes at Narrabri, N.S.W., Australia. There are 4 separate datasets, each obtained from observations over typically 10 days during a lunar dark period. The dataset from October 1990 exhibits periodicity at a chance probability of 1 × 10 -4 , and a similar effect is noted in the dataset from August 1991 at 1.6 × 10 −2 . In both cases, most of the power is in the second harmonic; the period is constant over at least 10 days and similar to that seen at optical wavelengths. No significant signal was detected in the September 1991 and October 1991 datasets. In addition, a strong and highly significant outburst lasting about 1 minute on 13 October 1990 and detected by two independent telescopes is reported. This outburst shows the 33 s periodic pulse structure and the pulses are in phase with those observed during the strongest sustained periodic signal in our data, from an observation lasting 3 h and taken 48 h previously. A second, weaker burst was also observed during August 1991.

TeV gamma rays from PSR 1706-44

Observations made with the University of Durham Mark 6 atmospheric Cerenkov telescope conrm that PSR B1706-44 is a very high energy -ray emitter. There is no indication from our dataset that the very high energy -rays are pulsed, in contrast to the ndings at 300 GeV is estimated to be (3:90:7stat)10 11 cm 2 s 1 .

SPARTA: the ESO standard platform for adaptive optics real time applications

ESO is starting a number of new projects collectively called Second Generation VLT instrumentation. Several of them will use Adaptive Optics (AO). In comparison with todays ESO AO systems, the 2nd Generation VLT AO systems will be much bigger (in terms of degrees of freedom) and faster (in terms of loop frequency). Consequently the Real-Time Computer controlling these AO systems will be significantly bigger and more challenging to build compared with todays AO systems in operation. To support the new requirements ESO started the development of a common flexible platform called SPARTA for Standard Platform for Adaptive optics Real Time Applications. The guidelines along which SPARTA is developed recognize the importance of industry standards over custom development to lower the development costs, ease the maintenance and make the system upgradeable thus delivering the performance required. SPARTA is based on a hybrid architecture that comprises all the major computing architectures available today: the high computational throughput is achieved through the combination of FPGA and DSP usage, where DSP are used as fast coprocessors and FPGA are used as front and as communication infrastructure, thus guaranteeing also the low latency. The flexibility is spread between the usage of both high-end CPUs and again the DSPs. All three technologies are organized in a parallel system interconnected by fast serial fabrics based on standard protocols. External input / output interfaces are also based on industry standard protocols, thus enabling the usage of commercially available tools for development and testing.

Experience with wavefront sensor and deformable mirror interfaces for wide-field adaptive optics systems

Recent advances in adaptive optics (AO) have led to the implementation of wide field-of-view AO systems. A number of wide-field AO systems are also planned for the forthcoming Extremely Large Telescopes. Such systems have multiple wavefront sensors of different types, and usually multiple deformable mirrors (DMs). Here, we report on our experience integrating cameras and DMs with the real-time control systems of two wide-field AO systems. These are CANARY, which has been operating on-sky since 2010, and DRAGON, which is a laboratory AO real-time demonstrator instrument. We detail the issues and difficulties that arose, along with the solutions we developed. We also provide recommendations for consideration when developing future wide-field AO systems.

Analysis of on-sky MOAO performance of CANARY using natural guide stars

The first on-sky results obtained by CANARY, the multi-object adaptive optics (MOAO) demonstrator, are analysed. The data were recorded at the William Herschel Telescope, at the end of September 2010. We describe the command and calibrations algorithms used during the run and present the observing conditions. The processed data are MOAO-loop engaged or disengaged slopes buffers, comprising the synchronised measurements of the four natural guide stars (NGS) wavefront sensors running in parallel, and near infrared (IR) images. We describe the method we use to establish the error budget of CANARY. We are able to evaluate the tomographic and the open loop errors, having median values around 216 nm and 110 nm respectively. In addition, we identify an unexpected residual quasi-static field aberration term of mean value 110 nm. We present the detailed error budget analysed for three sets of data for three different asterisms. We compare the experimental budgets with the numerically simulated ones and demonstrate a good agreement. We find also a good agreement between the computed error budget from the slope buffers and the measured Strehl ratio on the IR images, ranging between 10% and 20% at 1530 nm. These results make us confident in our ability to establish the error budget of future MOAO instruments.

NAOMI adaptive optics system for the 4.2-m William Herschel telescope

NAOMI (Nasmyth Adaptive Optics for Multi-purpose Instrumentation) is a recently completed and commissioned astronomical facility on the 4.2m William Herschel Telescope. The system is designed to work initially with Natural Guide Stars and also to be upgradeable for use with a single laser guide star. It has been designed to work with both near infrared and optical instrumentation (both imagers and spectrographs). The system uses a linearised segmented adaptive mirror and dual-CCD Shack-Hartmann wavefront sensor together with a multiple-DSP real-time processing system. Control system parameters can be updated on-the-fly by monitoring processes and the system can self-optimize its base optical figure to compensate for the optical characteristics of attached scientific instrumentation. The scientific motivation, consequent specification and implementation of NAOMI are described, together with example performance data and information on future upgrades and instrumentation.

The miso low energy γ-ray telescope

This paper describes the balloon-flight version of a low energy (0.2–20 MeV) gamma-ray telescope developed in collaboration by the Milan and Southampton groups. The instrument embodies a Compton-coincidence system comprising an upper liquid scintillator and a large sodium iodide crystal (560 cm 2 ). This detector is mounted inside a semiactive shielding system which collimates the incident photons (1.5° fwhm). The telescope is mounted in an orientation system which has a pointing accuracy of better than 0.5°. The instrument has been extensively tested using beams of γ -rays, neutrons and high energy protons (2 GeV/ c ).