Astronomy with ground-layer adaptive optics systems will push observations with AO to much larger fields of view than previously achieved. Observations such as astrometry of stars in crowded stellar fields and deep searches for very distant star-forming galaxies pushes the systems to the widest possible fields of view. Optical turbulence profiles on Maunakea, Hawaii suggest that such a system could deliver corrected fields of view several tens of arcminutes in size at resolutions close to the free-atmosphere seeing. We present the status of a pathfinder wide field of view ground-layer adaptive optics system on the UH2.2m telescope that will demonstrate key cases and serve as a test bed for systems on larger telescopes and for systems with even larger fields of view.

Date Published: 7 August 2014
PDF: 8 pages
Proc. SPIE 9148, Adaptive Optics Systems IV, 91481K (7 August 2014); doi: 10.1117/12.2056917

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 9148:
Adaptive Optics Systems IV
Enrico Marchetti; Laird M. Close; Jean-Pierre Véran, Editor(s)