Performance and upgrades of active optics on Gemini telescopes

Maxime Boccas; Tomislav Vucina

doi:10.1117/12.670895

6 July 2006 Performance and upgrades of active optics on Gemini telescopes

Maxime Boccas, Tomislav Vucina

Proceedings Volume 6273, Optomechanical Technologies for Astronomy; 627339 (2006) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.670895
Event: SPIE Astronomical Telescopes + Instrumentation, 2006, Orlando, Florida , United States

Abstract

Besides the increasing use of adaptive optics (AO) on modern telescopes, active optics (aO) are still of high importance to optimize Image Quality (IQ) for non-AO instruments and decrease the dynamic range needed for AO corrections. We will describe the design and operation of an optical alignment bench used to calibrate the aO models of the peripheral wavefront sensors. This setup is used to determine optical models in stable conditions in the laboratory and thus optimize wavefront correction on the sky. We will show results of this technique applied to our 2x2 Shack-Hartmann wavefront sensor used for tip-tilt-focus-astigmatism correction of all our non-AO instruments. We will also review some sub-systems performance monitoring tools and finally gauge the performance of active optics on the Gemini telescopes by analyzing the delivered image quality for various instruments.

Citation Download Citation

Maxime Boccas and Tomislav Vucina "Performance and upgrades of active optics on Gemini telescopes", Proc. SPIE 6273, Optomechanical Technologies for Astronomy, 627339 (6 July 2006); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.670895

ACCESS THE FULL ARTICLE

INSTITUTIONAL
Select your institution to access the SPIE Digital Library.

SELECT YOUR INSTITUTION

PERSONAL
Sign in with your SPIE account to access your personal subscriptions or to use specific features such as save to my library, sign up for alerts, save searches, etc.

PERSONAL SIGN IN

No SPIE Account? Create one

PURCHASE THIS CONTENT

SUBSCRIBE TO DIGITAL LIBRARY

50 downloads per 1-year subscription

Members: $195

Non-members: $335 ADD TO CART

25 downloads per 1 - year subscription

Members: $145

Non-members: $250 ADD TO CART

PURCHASE SINGLE ARTICLE

Includes PDF, HTML & Video, when available