Performance of laser guide star adaptive optics at Lick Observatory

Scot S. Olivier; Jong R. An; Kenneth Avicola; Horst D. Bissinger; James M. Brase; Herbert W. Friedman; Donald T. Gavel; Claire E. Max; J. Thaddeus Salmon; Kenneth E. Waltjen

doi:10.1117/12.217748

25 August 1995 Performance of laser guide star adaptive optics at Lick Observatory

Scot S. Olivier, Jong R. An, Kenneth Avicola, Horst D. Bissinger, James M. Brase, Herbert W. Friedman, Donald T. Gavel, Claire E. Max, J. Thaddeus Salmon, Kenneth E. Waltjen

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Proceedings Volume 2534, Adaptive Optical Systems and Applications; (1995) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.217748
Event: SPIE's 1995 International Symposium on Optical Science, Engineering, and Instrumentation, 1995, San Diego, CA, United States

Abstract

A sodium-layer laser guide star adaptive optics system has been developed at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) for use on the 3-meter Shane telescope at Lick Observatory. The system is based on a 127-actuator continuous-surface deformable mirror, a Hartmann wavefront sensor equipped with a fast-framing low-noise CCD camera, and a pulsed solid-state-pumped dye laser tuned to the atomic sodium resonance line at 589 nm. The adaptive optics system has been tested on the Shane telescope using natural reference stars yielding up to a factor of 12 increase in image peak intensity and a factor of 6.5 reduction in image full width at half maximum (FWHM). The results are consistent with theoretical expectations. The laser guide star system has been installed and operated on the Shane telescope yielding a beam with 22 W average power at 589 nm. Based on experimental data, this laser should generate an 8th magnitude guide star at this site, and the integrated laser guide star adaptive optics system should produce images with strehl ratios of 0.4 at 2.2 micrometer in median seeing and 0.7 at 2.2 micrometer in good seeing.

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Scot S. Olivier, Jong R. An, Kenneth Avicola, Horst D. Bissinger, James M. Brase, Herbert W. Friedman, Donald T. Gavel, Claire E. Max, J. Thaddeus Salmon, and Kenneth E. Waltjen "Performance of laser guide star adaptive optics at Lick Observatory", Proc. SPIE 2534, Adaptive Optical Systems and Applications, (25 August 1995); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.217748

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