Measurements of the Lick Observatory Sodium Laser Guide Star

The Lick Observatory guide star laser has provided a beacon sufficient to close the adaptive optics loop and produce corrected images during runs in 1996 and 1997. This report summarizes measurements of the wavefront quality of the outgoing beam, photoreturn signal from the sodium beacon, and radiance distribution of the guide star on the sky, and follows with an analysis of the impact of the laser on adaptive optics system performance

Wide baseline optical interferometry with Laser Guide Stars

Laser guide stars have been used successfully as a reference source for adaptive optics systems. We present a possible method for utilizing laser beacons as sources for interferometric phasing. The technique would extend the sky coverage for wide baseline interferometers and allow interferometric measurement and imaging of dim objects

The science case for the Next Generation AO system at W. M. Keck Observatory

The W. M. Keck Observatory is designing a new adaptive optics system providing precision AO correction in the near infrared, good correction at visible wavelengths, and multiplexed spatially resolved spectroscopy. We discuss science cases for this Next Generation AO (NGAO), and show how the system requirements were derived from these science cases. Key science drivers include asteroid companions, planets around low-mass stars, general relativistic effects around the Galactic Center black hole, nearby active galactic nuclei, and high-redshift galaxies (including galaxies lensed by intervening galaxies or clusters). The multi-object AO-corrected integral field spectrograph will be optimized for high-redshift galaxy science

Performance of keck adaptive optics with sodium laser guide star

The Keck telescope adaptive optics system is designed to optimize performance in he 1 to 3 micron region of observation wavelengths (J, H, and K astronomical bands). The system uses a 249 degree of freedom deformable mirror, so that the interactuator spacing is 56 cm as mapped onto the 10 meter aperture. 56 cm is roughly equal to r0 at 1.4 microns, which implies the wavefront fitting error is 0.52 ({lambda}/2{pi})({ital d}/{ital r}{sub 0}){sup 5/6} = 118 nm rms. This is sufficient to produce a system Strehl of 0.74 at 1.4 microns if all other sources of error are negligible, which would be the case with a bright natural guidestar and very high control bandwidth. Other errors associated with the adaptive optics will however contribute to Strehl degradation, namely, servo bandwidth error due to inability to reject all temporal frequencies of the aberrated wavefront, wavefront measurement error due to finite signal-to-noise ratio in the wavefront sensor, and, in the case of a laser guidestar, the so-called cone effect where rays from the guidestar beacon fail to sample some of the upper atmosphere turbulence. Cone effect is mitigated considerably by the use of the very high altitude sodium laser guidestar (90 km altitude), as opposed to Rayleigh beacons at 20 km. However, considering the Keck telescope`s large aperture, this is still the dominating wavefront error contributor in the current adaptive optics system design

Lick sodium laser guide star: performance during the 1998 LGS observing campaign

The performance of a sodium laser guide star adaptive optics system depends crucially on the characteristics of the laser guide star in the sodium layer. System performance is quite sensitive to sodium layer spot radiance, that is, return per unit sterradian on the sky, hence we have been working to improve projected beam quality via improvements to the laser and changes to the launched beam format. The laser amplifier was reconfigured to a ''bounce-beam'' geometry, which considerably improves wavefront quality and allows a larger round instead of square launch beam aperture. The smaller beacon makes it easier to block the unwanted Rayleigh light and improves the accuracy of Hartmann sensor wavefront measurements in the A0 system. We present measurements of the beam quality and of the resulting sodium beacon and compare to similar measurements from last year

Optical design for the Narrow Field InfraRed Adaptive Optics System (NFIRAOS) Petite on the Thirty Meter Telescope

We describe an exploratory optical design for the Narrow Field InfraRed Adaptive Optics (AO) System (NFIRAOS) Petite, a proposed adaptive optics system for the Thirty Meter Telescope Project. NFIRAOS will feed infrared spectrograph and wide-field imaging instruments with a diffraction limited beam. The adaptive optics system will require multi-guidestar tomographic wavefront sensing and multi-conjugate AO correction. The NFIRAOS Petite design specifications include two small 60 mm diameter deformable mirrors (DM's) used in a woofer/tweeter or multiconjugate arrangement. At least one DM would be a micro-electromechanical system (MEMS) DM. The AO system would correct a 10 to 30 arcsec diameter science field as well as laser guide stars (LGS's) located within a 60 arcsec diameter field and low-order or tip/tilt natural guide stars (NGS's) within a 60 arcsec diameter field. The WFS's are located downstream of the DM's so that they can be operated in true closed-loop, which is not necessarily a given in extremely large telescope adaptive optics design. The WFS's include adjustable corrector elements which correct the static aberrations of the AO relay due to field position and LGS distance height

Characterizing the Adaptive Optics Off-Axis Point-Spread Function. II. Methods for Use in Laser Guide Star Observations

Most current astronomical adaptive optics (AO) systems rely on the availability of a bright star to measure the distortion of the incoming wavefront. Replacing the guide star with an artificial laser beacon alleviates this dependency on bright stars and therefore increases sky coverage, but it does not eliminate another serious problem for AO observations. This is the issue of PSF variation with time and field position near the guide star. In fact, because a natural guide star is still necessary for correction of the low-order phase error, characterization of laser guide star (LGS) AO PSF spatial variation is more complicated than for a natural guide star alone. We discuss six methods for characterizing LGS AO PSF variation that can potentially improve the determination of the PSF away from the laser spot, that is, off-axis. Calibration images of dense star fields are used to determine the change in PSF variation with field position. This is augmented by AO system telemetry and simple computer simulations to determine a more accurate off-axis PSF. We report on tests of the methods using the laser AO system on the Lick Observatory Shane Telescope. [Abstract truncated.]Comment: 31 pages, 5 figures, accepted by PAS

Characterizing the Adaptive Optics Off-Axis Point-Spread Function - I: A Semi-Empirical Method for Use in Natural-Guide-Star Observations

Even though the technology of adaptive optics (AO) is rapidly maturing, calibration of the resulting images remains a major challenge. The AO point-spread function (PSF) changes quickly both in time and position on the sky. In a typical observation the star used for guiding will be separated from the scientific target by 10" to 30". This is sufficient separation to render images of the guide star by themselves nearly useless in characterizing the PSF at the off-axis target position. A semi-empirical technique is described that improves the determination of the AO off-axis PSF. The method uses calibration images of dense star fields to determine the change in PSF with field position. It then uses this information to correct contemporaneous images of the guide star to produce a PSF that is more accurate for both the target position and the time of a scientific observation. We report on tests of the method using natural-guide-star AO systems on the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope and Lick Observatory Shane Telescope, augmented by simple atmospheric computer simulations. At 25" off-axis, predicting the PSF full width at half maximum using only information about the guide star results in an error of 60%. Using an image of a dense star field lowers this error to 33%, and our method, which also folds in information about the on-axis PSF, further decreases the error to 19%.Comment: 29 pages, 9 figures, accepted for publication in the PAS

The science case for the Next Generation AO system at W. M. Keck Observatory

The W. M. Keck Observatory is designing a new adaptive optics system providing precision AO correction in the near infrared, good correction at visible wavelengths, and multiplexed spatially resolved spectroscopy. We discuss science cases for this Next Generation AO (NGAO), and show how the system requirements were derived from these science cases. Key science drivers include asteroid companions, planets around low-mass stars, general relativistic effects around the Galactic Center black hole, nearby active galactic nuclei, and high-redshift galaxies (including galaxies lensed by intervening galaxies or clusters). The multi-object AO-corrected integral field spectrograph will be optimized for high-redshift galaxy science