The Giant Magellan Telescope (GMT) has a Gregorian 25.4-meter diameter primary mirror composed of seven 8.4-meter diameter segments. The secondary mirror consists of seven 1.1-meter diameter segments. In the active and adaptive operation modes of the GMT, around a dozen wavefront sensors are selectively used to monitor the optical aberrations across the focal plane. A dedicated wavefront control system drives slow and fast corrections at the M1 and M2 mirrors to deliver image quality optimized for the field of view of the scientific instrument in use. This paper describes the control strategies for the active optics mode of the GMT. Different wavefront estimation algorithm are compared and the performance of the GMT is evaluated using the Dynamic Optical Simulation package.

Date Published: 26 July 2016
PDF: 11 pages
Proc. SPIE 9909, Adaptive Optics Systems V, 99091T (26 July 2016); doi: 10.1117/12.2231578

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 9909:
Adaptive Optics Systems V
Enrico Marchetti; Laird M. Close; Jean-Pierre Véran, Editor(s)