Robin Arsenault

NAOS, the first AO system of the VLT: on-sky performance

NAOS is the first adaptive optics system installed at the VLT 8m telescopes. It was designed, manufactured and tested by a french Consortium under an ESO contract, to provide compensated images to the high angular resolution IR spectro-imaging camera (CONICA) in the 1 to 5 μm spectral range. It is equipped with a 185 actuator deformable mirror, a tip/tilt mirror and two wavefront sensors, one in the visible and one in the near IR spectral range. It has been installed in November at the Nasmyth focus B of the VLT UT4. During the first light run in December 2001, NAOS has delivered a Strehl ratio of 50 under average seeing conditions for bright guide stars. The diffraction limit of the telescope has been achieved at 2.2 μm. The closed loop operation has been very robust under bad seeing conditions. It was also possible to obtain a substantial correction with mV=17.6 and mK=13.1 reference stars. The on-sky acceptance tests of NAOS-CONICA were completed in May 2002 and the instrument will be made available to the European astronomical community in October by ESO. This paper describes the system and present the on-sky performance in terms of Strehl ratio, seeing conditions and guide star magnitude.

Performance of the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope Adaptive Optics Bonnette

ABSTRACT Extensive results from the commissioning phase of PUEO, the adaptive optics instrument adaptor for the Canada‐France‐Hawaii Telescope (CFHT), are presented and discussed. Analyses of more than 750 images recorded with a CCD and a near‐IR camera on 16 nights in wavelengths from B to H are used to derive the properties of the compensated wavefront and images in a variety of conditions. The performance characteristics of the system are analyzed and presented in several ways, in terms of delivered Strehl ratios, full width half‐maxima (FWHM), and quantities describing the improvements of both. A qualitative description is given of how the properties of the corrected images result from the structure function of the compensated phase. Under median seeing conditions, PUEO delivers essentially diffraction‐limited images at H and K and images with FWHM ∼ 0 \documentclass{aastex} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{bm} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{pifont} \usepac...

Status of the VLT Nasmyth adaptive optics system (NAOS)

NAOS is the adaptive optics system to be installed at one of the Nasmyth focus of the VLT. It was designed and manufactured by a French Consortium to provide compensated images to the high angular resolution IR spectro-imaging camera (CONICA) in the 1 to 5 micrometer spectral range. For bright sources, NAOS will achieve a Strehl ratio of 70% under average seeing conditions. It is equipped with a 185 actuator deformable mirror, a tip/tilt mirror and two wavefront sensors, one in the visible and one in the near IR. All the components of NAOS have been delivered and the integration phase is in progress since the beginning of 2000. After extensive tests and performance verifications in France, the system will be shipped to Chile by the end of 2000. The first light at the VLT is foreseen in the beginning of 2001.

MACAO-VLTI adaptive optics systems performance

In April and August ’03 two MACAO-VLTI curvature AO systems were installed on the VLT telescopes unit 2 and 3 in Paranal (Chile). These are 60 element systems using a 150mm bimorph deformable mirror and 60 APD’s as WFS detectors. Valuable integration & commissioning experience has been gained during these 2 missions. Several tests have been performed in order to evaluate system performance on the sky. The systems have proven to be extremely robust, performing in a stable fashion in extreme seeing condition (seeing up to 3”). Strehl ratio of 0.65 and residual tilt smaller than 10 mas have been obtained on the sky in 0.8” seeing condition. Weak guide source performance is also excellent with a strehl of 0.26 on a V~16 magnitude star. Several functionalities have been successfully tested including: chopping, off-axis guiding, atmospheric refraction compensation etc. The AO system can be used in a totally automatic fashion with a small overhead: the AO loop can be closed on the target less than 60 sec after star acquisition by the telescope. It includes reading the seeing value given by the site monitor, evaluate the guide star magnitude (cycling through neutral density filters) setting the close-loop AO parameters (system gain and vibrating membrane mirror stroke) including calculation of the command-matrix. The last 2 systems will be installed in August ’04 and in the course of 2005.

Large DM AO systems: synthetic IM or calibration on sky?

Several designs of future Adaptive Optics (AO) systems propose to use a large Deformable Mirror (DM), regarding the size as well as the number of actuators. Most of the time, there is no focal plane upstream the DM. Therefore, the classical way of calibrating the interaction matrix on an artificial source cannot be applied. Furthermore, the requirements in terms of calibration error budget are tight and the high order modes of such DMs are stiff and hence they achieve only a small stroke. This is why novel ways to determine the system Interaction Matrix (IM) have to be investigated. Several paths have been studied. One solution would be to simulate a synthetic IM. However, calibration on sky is also an option. Different techniques were simulated, tested and optimized on real AO systems. The results are presented in this paper.

MACAO-VLTI: an adaptive optics system for the ESO interferometer

MACAO stands for Multi Application Curvature Adaptive Optics. A similar concept is applied to fulfill the need for wavefront correction for several VLT instruments. MACAO-VLTI is one of these built in 4 copies in order to equip the Coude focii of the ESO VLTs. The optical beams will then be corrected before interferometric recombination in the VLTI (Very Large Telescope Interferometer) laboratory. MACAO-VLTI uses a 60 elements bimorph mirror and curvature wavefront sensor. A custom made board processes the signals provided by the wavefront detectors, 60 Avalanche Photo-diodes, and transfer them to a commercial Power PC CPU board for Real Time Calculation. Mirrors Commands are sent to a High Voltage amplifier unit through an optical fiber link. The tip-tilt correction is done by a dedicated Tip-tilt mount holding the deformable mirror. The whole wavefront is located at the Coude focus. Software is developed in house and is ESO compatible. Expected performance is a Strehl ratio sligthly under 60% at 2.2 micron for bright reference sources (star V<10) and a limiting magnitude of 17.5 (Strehl ~0.1). The four systems will be installed in Paranal successively, the first one being planned for June 2003 and the last one for June 2004.

VLT deformable secondary mirror: integration and electromechanical tests results

The VLT Deformable secondary is planned to be installed on the VLT UT#4 as part of the telescope conversion into the Adaptive Optics test Facility (AOF). The adaptive unit is based on the well proven contactless, voice coil motor technology that has been already successfully implemented in the MMT, LBT and Magellan adaptive secondaries, and is considered a promising technical choice for the forthcoming ELT-generation adaptive correctors, like the E-ELT M4 and the GMT ASM. The VLT adaptive unit has been recently assembled after the completion of the manufacturing and modular test phases. In this paper, we present the most relevant aspects of the system integration and report the preliminary results of the electromechanical tests performed on the unit. This test campaign is a typical major step foreseen in all similar systems built so far: thanks to the metrology embedded in the system, that allows generating time-dependent stimuli and recording in real time the position of the controlled mirror on all actuators, typical dynamic response quality parameters like modal settling time, overshoot and following error can be acquired without employing optical measurements. In this way the system dynamic and some aspect of its thermal and long term stability can be fully characterized before starting the optical tests and calibrations.

ESO adaptive optics facility

ESO has initiated in June 2004 a concept of Adaptive Optics Facility. One unit 8m telescope of the VLT is upgraded with a 1.1 m convex Deformable Secondary Mirror and an optimized instrument park. The AO modules GALACSI and GRAAL will provide GLAO and LTAO corrections forHawk-I and MUSE. A natural guide star mode is provided for commissioning and maintenance at the telescope. The facility is completed by a Laser Guide Star Facility launching 4 LGS from the telescope centerpiece used for the GLAO and LTAO wavefront sensing. A sophisticated test bench called ASSIST is being designed to allow an extensive testing and characterization phase of the DSM and its AO modules in Europe. Most sub-projects have entered the final design phase and the DSM has entered Manufacturing phase. First light is planned in the course of 2012 and the commissioning phases should be completed by 2013.

The ESO Adaptive Optics Facility

The Adaptive Optics Facility is a project to convert one VLT-UT into a specialized Adaptive Telescope. The present secondary mirror (M2) will be replaced by a new M2-Unit hosting a 1170 actuators deformable mirror. The 3 focal stations will be equipped with instruments adapted to the new capability of this UT. Two instruments are in development for the 2 Nasmyth foci: Hawk-I with its AO module GRAAL allowing a Ground Layer Adaptive Optics correction and MUSE with GALACSI for GLAO correction and Laser Tomography Adaptive Optics correction. A future instrument still needs to be defined for the Cassegrain focus. Several guide stars are required for the type of adaptive corrections needed and a four Laser Guide Star facility (4LGSF) is being developed in the scope of the AO Facility. Convex mirrors like the VLT M2 represent a major challenge for testing and a substantial effort is dedicated to this. ASSIST, is a test bench that will allow testing of the Deformable Secondary Mirror and both instruments with simulated turbulence. This article describes the Adaptive Optics facility systems composing associated with it.

Custom CCD for adaptive optics applications

ESO and JRA2 OPTICON have funded e2v technologies to develop a compact packaged Peltier cooled 24 μm square 240x240 pixels split frame transfer 8-output back-illuminated L3Vision CCD3, L3Vision CCD for Adaptive Optic Wave Front Sensor (AO WFS) applications. The device is designed to achieve sub-electron read noise at frame rates from 25 Hz to 1,500 Hz and dark current lower than 0.01 e-/pixel/frame. The development has many unique features. To obtain high frame rates, multi-output EMCCD gain registers and metal buttressing of row clock lines are used. The baseline device is built in standard silicon. In addition, a split wafer run has enabled two speculative variants to be built; deep depletion silicon devices to improve red response and devices with an electronic shutter to extend use to Rayleigh and Pulsed Laser Guide Star applications. These are all firsts for L3Vision CCDs. The designs of the CCD and Peltier package have passed their reviews and fabrication has begun. This paper will describe the progress to date, the requirements and the design of the CCD and compact Peltier package, technology trade-offs, schedule and proposed test plan. High readout speed, low noise and compactness (requirement to fit in confined spaces) provide special challenges to ESOs AO variant of its NGC, New General detector Controller to drive this CCD. This paper will describe progress made on the design of the controller to meet these special needs.