Paper
31 May 1994 Adaptive optics package designed for astronomical use with a laser guide star tuned to an absorption line of atomic sodium
J. Thaddeus Salmon, Kenneth Avicola, James M. Brase, John W. Bergum, Herbert W. Friedman, Donald T. Gavel, Claire E. Max, Stephen D. Mostek, Scot S. Olivier, Robert W. Presta, Rodney J. Rinnert, Charles D. Swift, Kenneth E. Waltjen, Carolyn L. Weinzapfel, Jen Nan Wong
Author Affiliations +
Abstract
We present the design and implementation of a very compact adaptive optics system that senses the return light from a sodium guide-star and controls a deformable mirror and a pointing mirror to compensate atmospheric perturbations in the wavefront. The deformable mirror has 19 electrostrictive actuators and triangular subapertures. The wavefront sensor is a Hartmann sensor with lenslets on triangular centers. The high-bandwidth steering mirror assembly incorporates an analog controller that samples the tilt with an avalanche photodiode quad cell. An f/25 imaging leg focuses the light into a science camera that can either obtain long-exposure images or speckle data. In laboratory tests overall Strehl ratios were improved by a factor of 3 when a mylar sheet was used as an aberrator. The crossover frequency at unity gain is 30 Hz.
© (1994) COPYRIGHT Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE). Downloading of the abstract is permitted for personal use only.
J. Thaddeus Salmon, Kenneth Avicola, James M. Brase, John W. Bergum, Herbert W. Friedman, Donald T. Gavel, Claire E. Max, Stephen D. Mostek, Scot S. Olivier, Robert W. Presta, Rodney J. Rinnert, Charles D. Swift, Kenneth E. Waltjen, Carolyn L. Weinzapfel, and Jen Nan Wong "Adaptive optics package designed for astronomical use with a laser guide star tuned to an absorption line of atomic sodium", Proc. SPIE 2201, Adaptive Optics in Astronomy, (31 May 1994); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.176053
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KEYWORDS
Adaptive optics

Sensors

Deformable mirrors

Wavefronts

Mirrors

Actuators

Cameras

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