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The laser guide star adaptive optics system currently being developed for the Keck 2 telescope consists of several major subsystems: the optical bench, wavefront control, user interface and supervisory control, and the laser system. The paper describes the design and implementation of the wavefront control subsystem that controls a 349 actuator deformable mirror for high order correction and tip-tilt mirrors for stabilizing the image and laser positions.

Synthetic aperture radar (SAR) has become an important tool for remote sensing of the environment. SAR is a set of digital signal processing algorithms that are used to focus the signal returned to the radar because radar systems in themselves cannot produce the high resolution images required in remote sensing applications. To reconstruct an image, several parameters must be estimated and the quality of output image depends on the degree of accuracy of these parameters. In this thesis, we derive the fundamental SAR algorithms and concentrate on the estimation of one of its critical parameters. We show that the common technique for estimating this particular parameter can sometimes lead to erroneous results and reduced quality images. We also employ time-frequency analysis techniques to examine variations in the radar signals caused by platform motion and show how these results can be used to improve output image quality.

We will describe an adaptive optics system developed for the 1 meter Nickel and 3 meter Shane telescopes at Lick Observatory. Observing wavelengths will be in the visible for the 1 meter telescope and in the near IR on the 3 meter. The adaptive optics system design is based on a 69 actuator continuous surface deformable mirror and a Hartmann wavefront sensor equipped with an intensified CCD framing camera. The system has been tested at the Cassegrain focus of the 1 meter telescope where the subaperture size is 12.5 cm. The wavefront control calculations are performed on a four processor single board computer controlled by a Unix-based system. We will describe the optical system and give details of the wavefront control system design. We will present predictions of the system performance and initial test results.