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The LSST is an integrated, ground based survey system designed to conduct a decade-long time domain survey of the optical sky. It consists of an 8-meter class wide-field telescope, a 3.2 Gpixel camera, and an automated data processing system. In order to realize the scientific potential of the LSST, its optical system has to provide excellent and consistent image quality across the entire 3.5 degree Field of View. The purpose of the Active Optics System (AOS) is to optimize the image quality by controlling the surface figures of the telescope mirrors and maintaining the relative positions of the optical elements. The basic challenge of the wavefront sensor feedback loop for an LSST type 3-mirror telescope is the near degeneracy of the influence function linking optical degrees of freedom to the measured wavefront errors. Our approach to mitigate this problem is modal control, where a limited number of modes (combinations of optical degrees of freedom) are operated at the sampling rate of the wavefront sensing, while the control bandwidth for the barely observable modes is significantly lower. The paper presents a control strategy based on linear approximations to the system, and the verification of this strategy against system requirements by simulations using more complete, non-linear models for LSST optics and the curvature wavefront sensors.

Anisoplanatism is a primary source of photometric and astrometric error in single-conjugate adaptive optics. We present initial results of a project to model the off-axis optical transfer function in the adaptive optics system at the Keck II telescope. The model currently accounts for the effects of atmospheric anisoplanatism in natural guide star observations. The model for the atmospheric contribution to the anisoplanatic transfer function uses contemporaneous MASS/ DIMM measurements. Here we present the results of a validation campaign using observations of naturally guided visual binary stars under varying conditions, parameterized by the r0 and θ0 parameters of the C2n atmospheric turbulence profile. We are working to construct a model of the instrumental field-dependent aberrations in the NIRC2 camera using an artificial source in the Nasmyth focal plane. We also discuss our plans to extend the work to laser guide star operation. © (2012) COPYRIGHT Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE). Downloading of the abstract is permitted for personal use only.

CAMERA is an autonomous laser guide star adaptive optics system designed for small aperture telescopes. This system is intended to be mounted permanently on such a telescope to provide large amounts of flexibly scheduled observing time, delivering high angular resolution imagery in the visible and near infrared. The design employs a Shack Hartmann wavefront sensor, a 12x12 actuator MEMS device for high order wavefront compensation, and a solid state 355nm ND:YAG laser to generate a guide star. Commercial CCD and InGaAs detectors provide coverage in the visible and near infrared. CAMERA operates by selecting targets from a queue populated by users and executing these observations autonomously. This robotic system is targeted towards applications that are diffcult to address using classical observing strategies: surveys of very large target lists, recurrently scheduled observations, and rapid response followup of transient objects. This system has been designed and costed, and a lab testbed has been developed to evaluate key components and validate autonomous operations.

Deployed as a multi-user shared facility on the 5.1 meter Hale Telescope at Palomar Observatory, the PALM-3000 highorder upgrade to the successful Palomar Adaptive Optics System will deliver extreme AO correction in the near-infrared, and diffraction-limited images down to visible wavelengths, using both natural and sodium laser guide stars. Wavefront control will be provided by two deformable mirrors, a 3368 active actuator woofer and 349 active actuator tweeter, controlled at up to 3 kHz using an innovative wavefront processor based on a cluster of 17 graphics processing units. A Shack-Hartmann wavefront sensor with selectable pupil sampling will provide high-order wavefront sensing, while an infrared tip/tilt sensor and visible truth wavefront sensor will provide low-order LGS control. Four back-end instruments are planned at first light: the PHARO near-infrared camera/spectrograph, the SWIFT visible light integral field spectrograph, Project 1640, a near-infrared coronagraphic integral field spectrograph, and 888Cam, a high-resolution visible light imager.

We have recently demonstrated diffraction-limited resolution imaging in the visible on the 5m Palomar Hale telescope. The new LAMP instrument is a Lucky Imaging backend camera for the Palomar AO system. Typical resolutions of 35-40 mas with Strehls of 10-20% were achieved at 700nm, and at 500nm the FWHM resolution was as small as 42 milliarcseconds. In this paper we discuss the capabilities and design challenges of such a system used with current and near future AO systems on a variety of telescopes. In particular, we describe the designs of two planned Lucky Imaging + AO instruments: a facility instrument for the Palomar 200" AO system and its PALM3K upgrade, and a visible-light imager for the CAMERA low-cost LGS AO system planned for the Palomar 60" telescope. We introduce a Monte Carlo simulation setup that reproduces the observed PSF variability behind an adaptive optics system, and apply it to predict the performance of 888Cam and CAMERA. CAMERA is predicted to achieve diffraction-limited resolution at wavelengths as short as 350 nm. In addition to on-axis resolution improvements we discuss the results of frame selection with the aim of improving other image parameters such as isoplanatic patch sizes, showing that useful improvements in image quality can be made by Lucky+AO even with very temporally and spatially undersampled data.

We investigate the limits of ground-based astrometry with adaptive optics using the core of the Galactic globular cluster M5. Adaptive optics systems provide near diffraction-limit imaging with the world's largest telescopes. The substantial improvement in both resolution and signal-to-noise ratio enables high-precision astrometry from the ground. We describe the dominant systematic errors that typically limit ground-based differential astrometry, and enumerate observational considerations for mitigating their effects. After implementing these measures, we find that the dominant limitation on astrometric performance in this experiment is caused by tilt anisoplanatism. We then present an optimal estimation technique for measuring the position of one star relative to a grid of reference stars in the face of this correlated random noise source. Our methodology has the advantage of reducing the astrometric errors as the square root of time and faster than the square root of the number of reference stars -- effectively eliminating noise caused by atmospheric tilt to the point that astrometric performance is limited by centering accuracy. Using 50 reference stars we demonstrate single-epoch astrometric precision of ~ 1 mas in 1 second, decreasing to < 100 microarcseconds in 2 minutes of integration time at the Hale 200-inch telescope. We also show that our astrometry is accurate to, Comment: 32 pages, 12 figures; submitted to AJ

SPIE Astronomical Telescopes + Instrumentation, May 24-31, 2006, Orlando, Florida, United States, Series: Proceedings of SPIE; no. 6272

SPIE Astronomical Telescopes + Instrumentation, 2006, Orlando, Florida, United States, Series: Proceedings of SPIE; no. 6272

A point source deconvolution technique is described that models the effects of anisoplanatism on the adaptive optics point spread function. This technique is used in the analysis of a quadruple system observed using the Palomar Adaptive Optics system on the Hale 5 meter telescope. Two members of this system reside in a .1 asec double. Deconvolution of this close double was performed using the PSF of a third member of the system, which was offset from the double by 12 asec. Incorporation of anisoplanatism into the deconvolution procedure requires knowledge of the turbulence profile, which was measured at the time of these observations using a DIMM/MASS unit at Palomar Observatory.

PALM-3000 is proposed to be the first visible-light sodium laser guide star astronomical adaptive optics system. Deployed as a multi-user shared facility on the 5.1 meter Hale Telescope at Palomar Mountain, this state-of-the-art upgrade to the successful Palomar Adaptive Optics System will have the unique capability to open the visible light spectrum to diffraction-limited scientific access from the ground, providing angular imaging resolution as fine as 16 milliarcsec with modest sky coverage fraction.

Optics and Photonics 2005, July 31 - August 4, 2005, San Diego, California, United States, Series: Proceedings of SPIE; no. 5903