The Adaptive Optics Facility project is completing the integration of its systems at ESO Headquarters in Garching. The main test bench ASSIST and the 2^nd Generation M2-Unit (hosting the Deformable Secondary Mirror) have been granted acceptance late 2012. The DSM has undergone a series of tests on ASSIST in 2013 which have validated its optical performance and launched the System Test Phase of the AOF. This has been followed by the performance evaluation of the GRAAL natural guide star mode on-axis and will continue in 2014 with its Ground Layer AO mode. The GALACSI module (for MUSE) Wide-Field-Mode (GLAO) and the more challenging Narrow-Field-Mode (LTAO) will then be tested. The AOF has also taken delivery of the second scientific thin shell mirror and the first 22 Watt Sodium laser Unit. We will report on the system tests status, the performances evaluated on the ASSIST bench and advancement of the 4Laser Guide Star Facility. We will also present the near future plans for commissioning on the telescope and some considerations on tools to ensure an efficient operation of the Facility in Paranal.

The Large Binocular Telescope Interferometer is a high contrast imager and interferometer that sits at the combined bent Gregorian focus of the LBT’s dual 8.4 m apertures. The interferometric science drivers dictate 0.1” resolution with 10³ − 10⁴ contrast at 10 μm, while the 4 μm imaging science drivers require even greater contrasts, but at scales <0.2”. In imaging mode, LBTI’s Adaptive Optics system is already delivering 4 μm contrast of 10⁴ − 10⁵ at 0.3" − 0.75" in good conditions. Even in poor seeing, it can deliver up to 90% Strehl Ratio at this wavelength. However, the performance could be further improved by mitigating Non-Common Path Aberrations. Any NCPA remedy must be feasible using only the current hardware: the science camera, the wavefront sensor, and the adaptive secondary mirror. In preliminary testing, we have implemented an “eye doctor” grid search approach for astigmatism and trefoil, achieving 5% improvement in Strehl Ratio at 4 μm, with future plans to test at shorter wavelengths and with more modes. We find evidence of NCPA variability on short timescales and discuss possible upgrades to ameliorate time-variable effects.

MagAO is the new adaptive optics system with visible-light and infrared science cameras, located on the 6.5-m Magellan “Clay” telescope at Las Campanas Observatory, Chile. The instrument locks on natural guide stars (NGS) from 0th to 16th R-band magnitude, measures turbulence with a modulating pyramid wavefront sensor binnable from 28×28 to 7×7 subapertures, and uses a 585-actuator adaptive secondary mirror (ASM) to provide at wavefronts to the two science cameras. MagAO is a mutated clone of the similar AO systems at the Large Binocular Telescope (LBT) at Mt. Graham, Arizona. The high-level AO loop controls up to 378 modes and operates at frame rates up to 1000 Hz. The instrument has two science cameras: VisAO operating from 0.5-1μm and Clio2 operating from 1-5 μm. MagAO was installed in 2012 and successfully completed two commissioning runs in 2012-2013. In April 2014 we had our first science run that was open to the general Magellan community. Observers from Arizona, Carnegie, Australia, Harvard, MIT, Michigan, and Chile took observations in collaboration with the MagAO instrument team. Here we describe the MagAO instrument, describe our on-sky performance, and report our status as of summer 2014.

A new high-order adaptive optics system is now being commissioned at the Lick Observatory Shane 3-meter telescope in California. This system uses a high return efficiency sodium beacon and a combination of low and high-order deformable mirrors to achieve diffraction-limited imaging over a wide spectrum of infrared science wavelengths covering 0.8 to 2.2 microns. We present the design performance goals and the first on-sky test results. We discuss several innovations that make this system a pathfinder for next generation AO systems. These include a unique woofer-tweeter control that provides full dynamic range correction from tip/tilt to 16 cycles, variable pupil sampling wavefront sensor, new enhanced silver coatings developed at UC Observatories that improve science and LGS throughput, and tight mechanical rigidity that enables a multi-hour diffraction-limited exposure in LGS mode for faint object spectroscopy science.

Large telescopes equipped with adaptive optics require high power 589-nm continuous-wave sources with emission linewidths of ~5 MHz. These guide-star lasers should be highly reliable and simple to operate and maintain for many years at the top of a mountain facility. After delivery of the first 20-W systems to our lead customer ESO, TOPTICA and MPBC have begun series production of next-generation sodium guide-star lasers. The chosen approach is based on ESO’s patented narrow-band Raman fiber amplifier (RFA) technology [1]. A master oscillator signal from a TOPTICA 50-mW, 1178-nm diode laser, with stabilized emission frequency and linewidth of ~ 1 MHz, is amplified in an MPBC polarization-maintaining (PM) RFA pumped by a high-power 1120-nm PM fiber laser. With efficient stimulated Brillouin scattering suppression, an unprecedented 40 W of narrow-band RFA output has been obtained. This is spatially mode-matched into a patented resonant-cavity frequency doubler providing also the repumper light [2]. With a diffraction-limited output beam and doubling efficiencies < 80%, all ESO design goals have been easily fulfilled. Together with a wall-plug efficiency of < 3%, including all system controls, and a cooling liquid flow of only 5 l/min, the modular, turn-key, maintenance-free and compact system design allows a direct integration with a launch telescope. With these fiber-based guide star lasers, TOPTICA for the first time offers a fully engineered, off-the-shelf guide star laser system for ground-based optical telescopes. Here we present a comparison of test results of the first batch of laser systems, demonstrating the reproducibility of excellent optical characteristics.

Laser Guide Star (LGS) facilities for adaptive optics (AO) have been in routine scientific operation on the Keck II and Keck I telescopes since 2004 and 2012, respectively. Two upgrades are currently in process for the Keck II LGS facility: moving the launch of the laser from the side of the Keck telescope to behind the secondary mirror and replacing the existing dye laser with a Raman-fiber amplifier (RFA) laser. Both of these upgrades are on the path to a multi-LGS facility for Keck’s next generation AO (NGAO) system. We will discuss the performance and operations experience with the existing LGS facilities with an emphasis on the newer Keck I LGS facility, the recently implemented Keck II center launch system and its initial on-sky results, the progress on the design and implementation of the new fiber laser, and the plans for a multi-LGS facility for NGAO.

Robo-AO is the first AO system which can feasibly perform surveys of thousands of targets. The system has been operating in a fully robotic mode on the Palomar 1.5m telescope for almost two years. Robo-AO has completed nearly 12,000 high-angular-resolution observations in almost 20 separate science programs including exoplanet characterization, field star binarity, young star binarity and solar system observations. We summarize the Robo-AO surveys and the observations completed to date. We also describe the data-reduction pipeline we developed for Robo-AO—the first fully-automated AO data-reduction, point-spread-function subtraction and companion-search pipeline.

High-precision infrared astrometry is a powerful tool for the study of resolved stellar populations throughout our Galaxy. We highlight two particular science cases that require precise infrared astrometry: (1) measuring the initial mass function in massive young clusters throughout the MilkyWay and (2) finding isolated black holes that photometrically and astrometrically lens background bulge stars. Using astrometric results from these science cases, we perform a comparative analysis of the infrared astrometric capabilities from the Keck single-conjugate adaptive optics (AO) system, the Gemini multi-conjugate AO system, and the Hubble WFC3IR instrument. For the most crowded fields and a small region of interest, we show that Keck's single-conjugate AO system and the well-characterized NIRC2 instrument produce the highest astrometric precision at ~150 μas. However, for targets that cover a wider field of view, both the Gemini South AO Imager (GSAOI) and HST WFC3IR should be considered carefully. GSAOI currently delivers lower astrometric precision than HST WFC3IR for a given integration time; but, programs that require more frequent astrometric measurements over longer periods of time may benefit from the higher availability and possibly longer lifetime of GSAOI.

Observations of Galactic star clusters and objects in nearby moving groups recorded with Adaptive Optics (AO) systems on Gemini South are discussed. These include observations of open and globular clusters with the GeMS system, and high Strehl L' observations of the moving group member Sirius obtained with NICI. The latter data fail to reveal a brown dwarf companion with a mass ≥ 0.02M⊗ in an 18 × 18 arcsec² area around Sirius A. Potential future directions for AO studies of nearby star clusters and groups with systems on large telescopes are also presented.

Using the latest generation of adaptive optics imaging systems together with laser guide stars on 8m-class telescopes, we are finally revealing the previously-hidden population of supernovae in starburst galaxies. Finding these supernovae and measuring the amount of absorption due to dust is crucial to being able to accurately trace the star formation history of our Universe. Our images are amongst the sharpest ever obtained from the ground, and reveal much about how and why these galaxies are forming massive stars (that become supernovae) at such a prodigious rate.

The Large Binocular Telescope has two adaptive secondary mirrors which are used for regular observing in both seeinglimited mode and for diffraction-limited mode unlike the adaptive secondaries at the MMT and Magellan telescopes which are swapped in for diffraction-limited observing only. The LBTO secondary mirrors have been in routine operation for ~ 4 years for the first and for ~ 2 years for the second. We review the operational history of these units and discuss the various failure modes unique to adaptive secondaries as compared with rigid secondaries for seeing-limited observing and more conventional adaptive optics systems for diffraction-limited observing.

We present recent experimental results obtained with CILAS deformable mirrors (DMs) or demonstration prototypes in solar and night-time astronomy (with ground-based telescopes) as well as observation of the Earth (with space telescopes). These important results have been reached thanks to CILAS technology range composed of monomorph and piezostack deformable mirrors, drivers and optical coatings. For instance, the monomorph technology, due to a simple architecture can offer a very good reliability for space applications. It can be used for closed or open loop correction of the primary mirror deformation (thermal and polishing aberrations, absence of gravity). It can also allow a real-time correction of wavefront aberrations introduced by the atmosphere up to relatively high spatial and temporal frequencies for ground-based telescopes. The piezostack technology is useful for very high order correction at high frequency and under relatively low operational temperature (down to -30°C), which is required for future Extremely Large Telescopes (ELTs). This wide range of applications is exposed through recent examples of DMs performances in operation and results obtained with breadboards, allowing promising DMs for future needs.

Institute of Optics & Electronics (IOE), Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) has more than 30 years’ experience on piezoelectric deformable mirror (DM) technologies research and developing since early 1980s. Several DMs of IOE have been used in many different application systems. A brief history of piezoelectric DMs development in IOE and several recently achievements, and the main characters, performance and test results of the DMs for astronomy will be presented in this paper. 1) High-order DM. DM prototype with 913-element for 4m telescope has been fabricated and tested in laboratory. 2) Adaptive Secondary Mirror (ASM). A 73-element ASM prototype with 12 microns stroke for 1.8m telescope has been fabricated. It will be installed onto the 1.8m telescope with a compact adaptive optics (AO) system. 3) Small spacing DM. A 6mm spacing 127-element DM based on the same construction with the High-order DM has been used in AO system of 1m New Vacuum Solar Telescope (NVST) in Yunnan Observatories. Higher density (3mm spacing) DM based on a novel construction has being developed. In 2012, the novel DM prototype with 100-element was fabricated and tested carefully in laboratory. Beside, a 6mm spacing 151-element DM based on the novel construction has being fabricated for the solar AO system.

The Gemini Planet Imager (GPI) is a facility extreme-AO high-contrast instrument – optimized solely for study of faint companions – on the Gemini telescope. It combines a high-order MEMS AO system (1493 active actuators), an apodized pupil Lyot coronagraph, a high-accuracy IR post-coronagraph wavefront sensor, and a near-infrared integral field spectrograph. GPI incorporates several other novel features such as ultra-high quality optics, a spatially-filtered wavefront sensor, and new calibration techniques. GPI had first light in November 2013. This paper presnets results of first-light and performance verification and optimization and shows early science results including extrasolar planet spectra and polarimetric detection of the HR4696A disk. GPI is now achieving contrasts approaching 10^-6 at 0.5” in 30 minute exposures.

The Gemini Planet Imager instrument's adaptive optics (AO) subsystem was designed specifically to facilitate high-contrast imaging. It features several new technologies, including computationally efficient wavefront reconstruction with the Fourier transform, modal gain optimization every 8 seconds, and the spatially filtered wavefront sensor. It also uses a Linear-Quadratic-Gaussian (LQG) controller (aka Kalman filter) for both pointing and focus. We present on-sky performance results from verification and commissioning runs from December 2013 through May 2014. The efficient reconstruction and modal gain optimization are working as designed. The LQG controllers effectively notch out vibrations. The spatial filter can remove aliases, but we typically use it oversized by about 60% due to stability problems.

In Spring 2013, the LEECH (LBTI Exozodi Exoplanet Common Hunt) survey began its ~130-night campaign from the Large Binocular Telescope (LBT) atop Mt Graham, Arizona. This survey benefits from the many technological achievements of the LBT, including two 8.4-meter mirrors on a single fixed mount, dual adaptive secondary mirrors for high Strehl performance, and a cold beam combiner to dramatically reduce the telescope’s overall background emissivity. LEECH neatly complements other high-contrast planet imaging efforts by observing stars at L’ (3.8 μm), as opposed to the shorter wavelength near-infrared bands (1-2.4 μm) of other surveys. This portion of the spectrum offers deep mass sensitivity, especially around nearby adolescent (~0.1-1 Gyr) stars. LEECH’s contrast is competitive with other extreme adaptive optics systems, while providing an alternative survey strategy. Additionally, LEECH is characterizing known exoplanetary systems with observations from 3-5μm in preparation for JWST.

Vortex coronagraphs are among the most promising solutions to perform high contrast imaging at small angular separations from bright stars. They feature a very small inner working angle (down to the diffraction limit of the telescope), a clear 360 degree discovery space, have demonstrated very high contrast capabilities, are easy to implement on high-contrast imaging instruments, and have already been extensively tested on the sky. Since 2005, we have been designing, developing and testing an implementation of the charge-2 vector vortex phase mask based on concentric sub-wavelength gratings, referred to as the Annular Groove Phase Mask (AGPM). Science-grade mid-infrared AGPMs were produced in 2012 for the first time, using plasma etching on synthetic diamond substrates. They have been validated on a coronagraphic test bench, showing broadband peak rejection up to 500:1 in the L band, which translates into a raw contrast of about 6 x 10^-5 at 2λ=D. Three of them have now been installed on world-leading diffraction-limited infrared cameras, namely VLT/NACO, VLT/VISIR and LBT/LMIRCam. During the science verification observations with our L-band AGPM on NACO, we observed the beta Pictoris system and obtained unprecedented sensitivity limits to planetary companions down to the diffraction limit (0:1”). More recently, we obtained new images of the HR 8799 system at L band during the AGPM first light on LMIRCam. After reviewing these first results obtained with mid-infrared AGPMs, we will discuss the short- and mid-term goals of the on-going VORTEX project, which aims to improve the performance of our vortex phase masks for future applications on second-generation high-contrast imager and on future extremely large telescopes (ELTs). In particular, we will briefly describe our current efforts to improve the manufacturing of mid-infrared AGPMs, to push their operation to shorter wavelengths, and to provide deeper starlight extinction by creating new designs for higher topological charge vortices. Within the VORTEX project, we also plan to develop new image processing techniques tailored to coronagraphic images, and to study some pre- and post-coronagraphic concepts adapted to the vortex coronagraph in order to reduce scattered starlight in the final images.

The Gemini Planet Imager (GPI) entered on-sky commissioning and had its first-light at the Gemini South (GS) telescope in November 2013. GPI is an extreme adaptive optics (XAO), high-contrast imager and integral-field spectrograph dedicated to the direct detection of hot exo-planets down to a Jupiter mass. The performance of the apodized pupil Lyot coronagraph depends critically upon the residual wavefront error (design goal of 60nmRMS with <5 mas RMS tip/tilt), and therefore is most sensitive to vibration (internal or external) of Gemini's instrument suite. Excess vibration can be mitigated by a variety of methods such as passive or active dampening at the instrument or telescope structure or Kalman filtering of specific frequencies with the AO control loop. Understanding the sources, magnitudes and impact of vibration is key to mitigation. This paper gives an overview of related investigations based on instrument data (GPI AO module) as well as external data from accelerometer sensors placed at different locations on the GS telescope structure. We report the status of related mitigation efforts, and present corresponding results.

The SPHERE (Spectro-Polarimetry High-contrast Exoplanet Research) instrument is an ESO project aiming at the direct detection of extra-solar planets. SPHERE has been successfully integrated and tested in Europe end 2013 and has been re-integrated at Paranal in Chile early 2014 for a first light at the beginning of May. The heart of the SPHERE instrument is its eXtreme Adaptive Optics (XAO) SAXO (SPHERE AO for eXoplanet Observation) subsystem that provides extremely high correction of turbulence and very accurate stabilization of images for coronagraphic purpose. However, SAXO, as well as the overall instrument, must also provide constant operability overnights, ensuring robustness and autonomy. An original control scheme has been developed to satisfy this challenging dichotomy. It includes in particular both an Optimized Modal Gain Integrator (OMGI) to control the Deformable Mirror (DM) and a Linear Quadratic Gaussian (LQG) control law to manage the tip-tilt (TT) mirror. LQG allows optimal estimation and prediction of turbulent angle of arrival but also of possible vibrations. A specific and unprecedented control scheme has been developed to continuously adapt and optimize LQG control ensuring a constant match to turbulence and vibrations characteristics. SPHERE is thus the first operational system implementing LQG, with automatic adjustment of its models. SAXO has demonstrated performance beyond expectations during tests in Europe, in spite of internal limitations. Very first results have been obtained on sky last May. We thus come back to SAXO control scheme, focusing in particular on the LQG based TT control and the various upgrades that have been made to enhance further the performance ensuring constant operability and robustness. We finally propose performance assessment based on in lab performance and first on sky results and discuss further possible improvements.

We present a fast wavefront reconstruction algorithm developed for an extreme adaptive optics system equipped with a pyramid wavefront sensor on a 42m telescope. The method is called the Preprocessed Cumulative Reconstructor with domain decomposition (P-CuReD). The algorithm is based on the theoretical relationship between pyramid and Shack-Hartmann wavefront sensor data. The algorithm consists of two consecutive steps - a data preprocessing, and an application of the CuReD algorithm, which is a fast method for wavefront reconstruction from Shack-Hartmann sensor data. The closed loop simulation results show that the P-CuReD method provides the same reconstruction quality and is significantly faster than an MVM.

The problem of atmospheric tomography arises in ground-based telescope imaging with adaptive optics (AO), where one aims to compensate in real-time for the rapidly changing optical distortions in the atmosphere. Many of these systems depend on a sufficient reconstruction of the turbulence profiles in order to obtain a good correction. Due to steadily growing telescope sizes, there is a strong increase in the computational load for atmospheric reconstruction with current methods, first and foremost the MVM. In this paper we present and compare three novel iterative reconstruction methods. The first iterative approach is the Finite Element- Wavelet Hybrid Algorithm (FEWHA), which combines wavelet-based techniques and conjugate gradient schemes to efficiently and accurately tackle the problem of atmospheric reconstruction. The method is extremely fast, highly flexible and yields superior quality. Another novel iterative reconstruction algorithm is the three step approach which decouples the problem in the reconstruction of the incoming wavefronts, the reconstruction of the turbulent layers (atmospheric tomography) and the computation of the best mirror correction (fitting step). For the atmospheric tomography problem within the three step approach, the Kaczmarz algorithm and the Gradient-based method have been developed. We present a detailed comparison of our reconstructors both in terms of quality and speed performance in the context of a Multi-Object Adaptive Optics (MOAO) system for the E-ELT setting on OCTOPUS, the ESO end-to-end simulation tool.

The estimation of a corrugated wavefront after propagation through the atmosphere is usually solved optimally with a Minimum-Mean-Square-Error algorithm. The derivation of the optimal wavefront can be a very computing intensive task especially for large Adaptive Optics (AO) systems that operates in real-time. For the largest AO systems, efficient optimal wavefront reconstructor have been proposed either using sparse matrix techniques or relying on the fractal properties of the atmospheric wavefront. We propose a new method that exploits the Toeplitz structure in the covariance matrix of the wavefront gradient. The algorithm is particularly well-suited to Shack-Hartmann wavefront sensor based AO systems. Thanks to the Toeplitz structure of the covariance, the matrices are compressed up to a thousand-fold and the matrix-to-vector product is reduced to a simple one-dimension convolution product. The optimal wavefront is estimated iteratively with the MINRES algorithm which exhibits better convergence properties for ill-conditioned matrices than the commonly used Conjugate Gradient algorithm. The paper describes, in a first part, the Toeplitz structure of the covariance matrices and shows how to compute the matrix-to-vector product using only the compressed version of the matrices. In a second part, we introduced the MINRES iterative solver and shows how it performs compared to the Conjugate Gradient algorithm for different AO systems.

There is great interest in the adaptive optics (AO) science community to overcome the limitations imposed by incomplete knowledge of the point spread function (PSF). To address this limitation a program has been initiated at the W. M. Keck Observatory (WMKO) to demonstrate PSF determination for observations obtained with Keck AO science instruments. This paper aims to give a broad view of the progress achieved in this area. The concept and the implementation are briefly described. The results from on-sky on-axis NGS AO measurements using the NIRC2 science instrument are presented. On-sky performance of the technique is illustrated by comparing the reconstructed PSFs to NIRC2 PSFs. Accuracy of the reconstructed PSFs in terms of Strehl ratio and FWHM are discussed. Science cases for the first phase of science verification have been identified. More technical details of the program are presented elsewhere in the conference.

A new exoplanet finding algorithm called TLOCI (for Template LOCI) is presented to subtract high-contrast imaging PSFs by “maximizing a companion signal-to-noise ratio”. TLOCI uses an input spectrum and template PSFs to optimize the reference image least-squares coefficients to minimize the flux contamination via self-subtraction of any specific planet in the image, while trying to maximize, at the same time, the noise subtraction. The new algorithm has been developed using on sky Gemini Planet Imager data and has achieved impressive contrast.

The Giant Magellan Telescope (GMT) adaptive optics (AO) system will be an integral part of the telescope, providing laser guidestar generation, wavefront sensing, and wavefront correction to every instrument currently planned on the 25.4 m diameter GMT. There will be three first generation AO observing modes: Natural Guidestar, Laser Tomography, and Ground Layer AO. All three will use a segmented adaptive secondary mirror to deliver a corrected beam directly to the instruments. The Natural Guidestar mode will provide extreme AO performance, with a total wavefront error less than 185 nm RMS using bright guidestars. The Laser Tomography mode uses 6 lasers and a single off-axis natural guidestar to deliver better than 290 nm RMS wavefront error at the science target, over 50% of the sky at the galactic pole. The Ground Layer mode uses 4 natural guidestars on the periphery of the science field to tomographically reconstruct and correct the ground layer AO turbulence, improving the image quality for wide-field instruments. A phasing system maintains the relative alignment of the primary and secondary segments using edge sensors and continuous feedback from an off-axis guidestar. We describe the AO system preliminary design, predicted performance, and the remaining technical challenges as we move towards the start of construction.

The TMT first light Adaptive Optics (AO) facility consists of the Narrow Field Infra-Red AO System (NFIRAOS) and the associated Laser Guide Star Facility (LGSF). NFIRAOS is a 60 × 60 laser guide star (LGS) multi-conjugate AO (MCAO) system, which provides uniform, diffraction-limited performance in the J, H, and K bands over 17-30 arc sec diameter fields with 50 per cent sky coverage at the galactic pole, as required to support the TMT science cases. NFIRAOS includes two deformable mirrors, six laser guide star wavefront sensors, and three low-order, infrared, natural guide star wavefront sensors within each client instrument. The first light LGSF system includes six sodium lasers required to generate the NFIRAOS laser guide stars. In this paper, we will provide an update on the progress in designing, modeling and validating the TMT first light AO systems and their components over the last two years. This will include pre-final design and prototyping activities for NFIRAOS, preliminary design and prototyping activities for the LGSF, design and prototyping for the deformable mirrors, fabrication and tests for the visible detectors, benchmarking and comparison of different algorithms and processing architecture for the Real Time Controller (RTC) and development and tests of prototype candidate lasers. Comprehensive and detailed AO modeling is continuing to support the design and development of the first light AO facility. Main modeling topics studied during the last two years include further studies in the area of wavefront error budget, sky coverage, high precision astrometry for the galactic center and other observations, high contrast imaging with NFIRAOS and its first light instruments, Point Spread Function (PSF) reconstruction for LGS MCAO, LGS photon return and sophisticated low order mode temporal filtering.

The Multi-Conjugate Adaptive Optics module for the European Extremely Large Telescope has been designed to achieve uniform compensation of the atmospheric turbulence effects on a wide field of view in the near infrared. The design realized in the Phase A of the project is undergoing major revision in order to define a robust baseline in view of the next phases of the project. An overview of the on-going activities is presented.

We present in this paper an overview of the single-conjugate adaptive optics (SCAO) module of the wide-field imager MICADO. MICADO is a near-IR camera for the European ELT, featuring a wide field (75"), spectroscopic and coronagraphic capabilities. It has been chosen by ESO as one of the two first-light instruments. MICADO will be optimized for the multi-conjugate adaptive optics module MAORY and will also work in SCAO mode. This SCAO mode will provide MICADO with a high-level, on-axis correction, making use of the M4 adaptive mirror in the telescope. We present first the current design of the different subsystems of the SCAO module (namely the optical relay interfacing MICADO to the telescope in its SCAO mode, the wavefront sensor, the real-time computer and the high contrast imaging). We then present the adaptive optics and coronagraphic simulations. The following section is devoted to the presentation of the project organization. We end with the conclusions and perspectives of the project.

NFIRAOS, the Thirty Meter Telescope’s first adaptive optics system is an order 60x60 Multi-Conjugate AO system with two deformable mirrors. Although most observing will use 6 laser guide stars, it also has an NGS-only mode. Uniquely, NFIRAOS is cooled to -30 °C to reduce thermal background. NFIRAOS delivers a 2-arcminute beam to three client instruments, and relies on up to three IR WFSs in each instrument. We present recent work including: robust automated acquisition on these IR WFSs; trade-off studies for a common-size of deformable mirror; real-time computing architectures; simplified designs for high-order NGS-mode wavefront sensing; modest upgrade concepts for high-contrast imaging.

For almost two decades significant improvements have been made in the area of efficient WaveFront sensing to compensate areas in the sky of larger size and with better achieved quality. This has been accomplished in several directions, some of them become possible because of the development of new technologies, because of the availability of new kind of telescopes or because of the introduction of new concepts. While one of the currently favorite scenarios involve the so called Global MCAO, I will try to review these efforts placing them in perspective.

The prototype Robo-AO system at the Palomar Observatory 1.5-m telescope is the world's first fully automated laser adaptive optics instrument. Scientific operations commenced in June 2012 and more than 12,000 observations have since been performed at the ~0.12" visible-light diffraction limit. Two new infrared cameras providing high-speed tip-tilt sensing and a 2' field-of-view will be integrated in 2014. In addition to a Robo-AO clone for the 2-m IGO and the natural guide star variant KAPAO at the 1-m Table Mountain telescope, a second generation of facility-class Robo-AO systems are in development for the 2.2-m University of Hawai'i and 3-m IRTF telescopes which will provide higher Strehl ratios, sharper imaging, ~0.07", and correction to λ = 400 nm.

The conceptual design of the Giant Magellan Telescope has four wavefront sensors used to maintain the shape and alignment of the segmented primary and secondary mirrors. In this paper, we show that by reading the sensors at 200 Hz, we can also compensate for low altitude turbulence. As a result, there is a large improvement in image quality, even at visible wavelengths, over the entire science field of view of the telescope. A minimum-variance reconstructor is presented that takes slope measurements from four stars of arbitrary location and magnitude and produces the optimal adaptive secondary mirror commands. The performance of the adaptive optics system in this mode is simulated using YAO, an end-to-end simulation tool. We present the results of trade studies performed to optimize the science return of the telescope.

We introduce current status of the feasibility study on a wide field of regard (FoR) Multi-Object Adaptive Optics (MOAO) system for TMT (TMT-AGE: TMT-Analyzer for Galaxies in the Early universe). MOAO is a system which realize high spatial-resolution observations of multiple objects scattered in a wide FoR. In this study, we put emphasise on the FoR as wide as 10′ diameter. The wide FoR is crucial to effectively observe very high-redshift galaxies, which have low surface number density. Simulations of an MOAO system with 8 LGSs show close-to-diffraction-limited correction can be achieved within 5′ diameter FoR and moderate AO correction can be achieved within 10′ diameter FoR. We discuss overall system design of the wide FoR MOAO system considering the constraint from the stroke of small-size deformable mirror (DM). We also introduce current status of developments of key components of an MOAO system; high-dynamic range wavefront sensor (WFS) and large-stroke small-size DM, and real time computer (RTC) with fast tomographic reconstruction.

In this paper we describe the development of fast low noise detectors intended primarily for use in Shack Hartmann wavefront sensors for natural and laser guide star wavefront sensing in the future adaptive optics systems of the Thirty Meter Telescope Project and the Next Generation Adaptive Optics system at the W. M. Keck Observatory. This work results from collaboration among the W. M. Keck Observatory, the Thirty Meter Telescope Project, the Lincoln Laboratory of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and the Starfire Optical Range of the Air Force Research Laboratory. Testing of backside thinned, packaged detectors has been completed and performance results including read noise, readout speed, charge diffusion, dark current, and quantum efficiency will be reported. Proposed developments of readout systems to compliment this detector will be described, and performance compared to alternative detector solutions.

The only way to overcome the CMOS noise barrier of near infrared sensors used for wavefront sensing and fringe tracking is the amplification of the photoelectron signal inside the infrared pixel by means of the avalanche gain. In 2007 ESO started a program at Selex to develop near infrared electron avalanche photodiode arrays (eAPD) for wavefront sensing and fringe tracking. In a first step the cutoff wavelength was reduced from 4.5 micron to 2.5 micron in order to verify that the dark current scales with the bandgap and can be reduced to less than one electron/ms, the value required for wavefront sensing. The growth technology was liquid phase epitaxy (LPE) with annular diodes based on the loophole interconnect technology. The arrays required deep cooling to 40K to achieve acceptable cosmetic performance at high APD gain. The second step was to develop a multiplexer tailored to the specific application of the GRAVITY instrument wavefront sensors and the fringe tracker. The pixel format is 320x256 pixels. The array has 32 parallel video outputs which are arranged in such a way that the full multiplex advantage is available also for small subwindows. Nondestructive readout schemes with subpixel sampling are possible. This reduces the readout noise at high APD gain well below the subelectron level at frame rates of 1 KHz. The third step was the change of the growth technology from liquid phase epitaxy to metal organic vapour phase epitaxy (MOVPE). This growth technology allows the band structure and doping to be controlled on a 0.1μm scale and provides more flexibility for the design of diode structures. The bandgap can be varied for different layers of Hg(_1-x)Cd_xTe. It is possible to make heterojunctions and apply solid state engineering techniques. The change to MOVPE resulted in a dramatic improvement in the cosmetic quality with 99.97 % operable pixels at an operating temperature of 85K. Currently this sensor is deployed in the 4 wavefront sensors and in the fringe tracker of the VLT instrument GRAVITY. Initial results will be presented. An outlook will be given on the potential of APD technology to be employed in large format near infrared science detectors. Several of the results presented here have also been shown to a different audience at the Scientific Detector Workshop in October 2013 in Florence but this paper has been updated with new results [1].

We report in this paper decisive advance on the detector development for the astronomical applications that require very fast operation. Since the CCD220 and OCAM2 major success, new detector developments started in Europe either for visible and IR wavelengths. Funded by ESO and the FP7 Opticon European network, the NGSD CMOS device is fully dedicated to Natural and Laser Guide Star AO for the E-ELT with strong ESO involvement. The NGSD will be a 880x840 pixels CMOS detector with a readout noise of 3 e (goal 1e) at 700 Hz frame rate and providing digital outputs. A camera development, based on this CMOS device and also funded by the Opticon European network, is ongoing. Another major AO wavefront sensing detector development concerns IR detectors based on Avalanche Photodiode (e- APD) arrays within the RAPID project. Developed by the SOFRADIR and CEA/LETI manufacturers, the latter offers a 320x255 8 outputs 30 microns IR array, sensitive from 0.4 to 3 microns, with less than 2 e readout noise at 1600 fps. A rectangular window can also be programmed to speed up even more the frame rate when the full frame readout is not required. The high QE response, in the range of 70%, is almost flat over this wavelength range. Advanced packaging with miniature cryostat using pulse tube cryocoolers was developed in the frame of this programme in order to allow use on this detector in any type of environment. The characterization results of this device are presented here. Readout noise as low as 1.7 e at 1600 fps has been measured with a 3 microns wavelength cut-off chip and a multiplication gain of 14 obtained with a limited photodiode polarization of 8V. This device also exhibits excellent linearity, lower than 1%. The pulse tube cooling allows smart and easy cooling down to 55 K. Vibrations investigations using centroiding and FFT measurements were performed proving that the miniature pulse tube does not induce measurable vibrations to the optical bench, allowing use of this cooled device without liquid nitrogen in very demanding environmental conditions. A successful test of this device was performed on sky on the PIONIER 4 telescopes beam combiner on the VLTi at ESOParanal in June 2014. First Light Imaging, which will commercialize a camera system using also APD infrared arrays in its proprietary wavefront sensor camera platform. These programs are held with several partners, among them are the French astronomical laboratories (LAM, OHP, IPAG), the detector manufacturers (e2v technologies, Sofradir, CEA/LETI) and other partners (ESO, ONERA, IAC, GTC, First Light Imaging). Funding is: Opticon FP7 from European Commission, ESO, CNRS and Université de Provence, Sofradir, ONERA, CEA/LETI the French FUI (DGCIS), the FOCUS Labex and OSEO.

To date, the OCAM2 system has demonstrated to be the fastest and lowest noise production ready wavefront sensor, achieving 2067 full frames per second with subelectron readout noise. This makes OCAM2 the ideal system for natural as well as continuous wave laser guide star wavefront sensing. In this paper we present the new gated version of OCAM2 named OCAM2-S, using E2V’s CCD219 sensor with integral shutter. This new camera offers the same superb characteristics than OCAM2 both in terms of speed and readout noise but also offers a shutter function that makes the sensor only sensitive to light for very short periods, at will. We will report on gating time and extinction ratio performances of this new camera. This device opens new possibilities for Rayleigh pulsed lasers adaptive optics systems. With a shutter time constant well below 1 microsecond, this camera opens new solutions for pulsed sodium lasers with backscatter suppression or even spot elongation minimization for ELT LGS.

Near-Infrared wave front sensing allows to enhance sky coverage with adaptive optics. The recently developed HgCdTe avalanche photodiode arrays are promising, but still present an unperfect cosmetic. After the fine characterization of such a HgCdTe array, we propose a statistical model of the pixel response. Assuming the cosmetic is partially corrected, we simulate the impact of the residual error on a Shack-Hartmann wavefront sensor measurement. The study shows the operability of such a real time correction, and of the HgCdTe APD array characterized in this framework: the RAPID camera.

ARGOS is the Laser Guide Star and Wavefront sensing facility for the Large Binocular Telescope. With first laser light on sky in 2013, the system is currently undergoing commissioning at the telescope. We present the overall status and design, as well as first results on sky. Aiming for a wide field ground layer correction, ARGOS is designed as a multi- Rayleigh beacon adaptive optics system. A total of six powerful pulsed lasers are creating the laser guide stars in constellations above each of the LBTs primary mirrors. With a range gated detection in the wavefront sensors, and the adaptive correction by the deformable secondary’s, we expect ARGOS to enhance the image quality over a large range of seeing conditions. With the two wide field imaging and spectroscopic instruments LUCI1 and LUCI2 as receivers, a wide range of scientific programs will benefit from ARGOS. With an increased resolution, higher encircled energy, both imaging and MOS spectroscopy will be boosted in signal to noise by a large amount. Apart from the wide field correction ARGOS delivers in its ground layer mode, we already foresee the implementation of a hybrid Sodium with Rayleigh beacon combination for a diffraction limited AO performance.

By inserting a MEMS deformable mirror-based adaptive optics system into the beam transfer optics of the Shane 3-meter telescope at Mt. Hamilton, we actively controlled the wavefront of the outgoing sodium laser guidestar beam. It was possible to show that a purposefully aberrated beam resulted in poorer performance of the Adaptive Optics system located behind the primary, though bad seeing conditions prevented us from improving the system’s performance over its nominal state. A silver-coated Iris AO deformable mirror was subjected to approximately 9.5 hours of exposure to a sodium laser guidestar of 3.5 Watts average output power and showed no signs of permanent damage or degradation in performance. Future applications of the uplink-AO system for correcting atmospheric turbulence and in generating custom laser guidestar asterisms are also discussed.

The Palomar Ultraviolet Laser for the Study of Exoplanets (PULSE) will dramatically expand the science reach of PALM-3000, the facility high-contrast extreme adaptive optics system on the 5-meter Hale Telescope. By using an ultraviolet laser to measure the dominant high spatial and temporal order turbulence near the telescope aperture, one can increase the limiting natural guide star magnitude for exquisite correction from m_V < 10 to m_V < 16. Providing the highest near-infrared Strehl ratios from any large telescope laser adaptive optics system, PULSE uniquely enables spectroscopy of low-mass and more distant young exoplanet systems, essential to formulating a complete picture of exoplanet populations.

Space debris in Low Earth Orbit (LEO) is becoming an increasing threat to satellite and spacecraft. A reliable and cost effective method for detecting possible collisions between orbiting objects is required to prevent an exponential growth in the number of debris. Current RADAR survey technologies used to monitor the orbits of thousands of space debris objects are relied upon to manoeuvre operational satellites to prevent possible collisions. A complimentary technique, ground-based laser LIDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) have been used to track much smaller objects with higher accuracy than RADAR, giving greater prediction of possible collisions and avoiding unnecessary manoeuvring. Adaptive optics will play a key role in any ground based LIDAR tracking system as a cost effective way of utilising smaller ground stations or less powerful lasers. The use of high power and high energy lasers for the orbital modification of debris objects will also require an adaptive optic system to achieve the high photon intensity on the target required for photon momentum transfer and laser ablation. EOS Space Systems have pioneered the development of automated laser space debris tracking for objects in low Earth orbit. The Australian National University have been developing an adaptive optics system to improve this space debris tracking capability at the EOS Space Systems Mount Stromlo facility in Canberra, Australia. The system is integrated with the telescope and commissioned as an NGS AO system before moving on to LGS AO and tracking operations. A pulsed laser propagated through the telescope is used to range the target using time of flight data. Adaptive optics is used to increase the maximum range and number or targets available to the LIDAR system, by correcting the uplink laser beam. Such a system presents some unique challenges for adaptive optics: high power lasers reflecting off deformable mirrors, high slew rate tracking, and variable off-axis tracking correction. A low latency real time computer system is utilised to control the systems, with a Shack-Hartmann wavefront sensor and deformable mirror running at 1500 frames per second. A laser guide star is used to probe the atmosphere and the tracked debris object is used as a natural guide star for tip-tilt correction.

Raven is a Multi-Object Adaptive Optics (MOAO) technical and science demonstrator which had its first light at the Subaru telescope on May 13-14, 2014. Raven was built and tested at the University of Victoria AO Lab before shipping to Hawai`i. Raven includes three open loop wavefront sensors (WFSs), a central laser guide star WFS, and two independent science channels feeding light to the Subaru IRCS spectrograph. Raven supports different kinds of AO correction: SCAO, open-loop GLAO and MOAO. The MOAO mode can use different tomographic reconstructors, such as Learn-and-Apply or a model-based reconstructor. This paper presents the latest results obtained in the lab, which are consistent with simulated performance, as well as preliminary on-sky results, including echelle spectra from IRCS. Ensquared energy obtained on sky in 140mas slit is 17%, 30% and 41% for GLAO, MOAO and SCAO respectively. This result confirms that MOAO can provide a level of correction in between GLAO and SCAO, in any direction of the field of regard, regardless of the science target brightness.

CANARY is an on-sky Laser Guide Star (LGS) tomographic AO demonstrator that has been in operation at the 4.2m William Herschel Telescope (WHT) in La Palma since 2010. In 2013, CANARY was upgraded from its initial configuration that used three off-axis Natural Guide Stars (NGS) through the inclusion of four off-axis Rayleigh LGS and associated wavefront sensing system. Here we present the system and analysis of the on-sky results obtained at the WHT between May and September 2014. Finally we present results from the final ‘Phase C’ CANARY system that aims to recreate the tomographic configuration to emulate the expected tomographic AO configuration of both the AOF at the VLT and E-ELT.

We measure the long-term systematic component of the astrometric error in the GeMS MCAO system as a function of field radius and Ks magnitude. The experiment uses two epochs of observations of NGC 1851 separated by one month. The systematic component is estimated for each of three field of view cases (15'' radius, 30'' radius, and full field) and each of three distortion correction schemes: 8 DOF/chip + local distortion correction (LDC), 8 DOF/chip with no LDC, and 4 DOF/chip with no LDC. For bright, unsaturated stars with 13 < Ks < 16, the systematic component is < 0.2, 0.3, and 0.4 mas, respectively, for the 15'' radius, 30'' radius, and full field cases, provided that an 8 DOF/chip distortion correction with LDC (for the full-field case) is used to correct distortions. An 8 DOF/chip distortion-correction model always outperforms a 4 DOF/chip model, at all field positions and magnitudes and for all field-of-view cases, indicating the presence of high-order distortion changes. Given the order of the models needed to correct these distortions (~8 DOF/chip or 32 degrees of freedom total), it is expected that at least 25 stars per square arcminute would be needed to keep systematic errors at less than 0.3 milliarcseconds for multi-year programs. We also estimate the short-term astrometric precision of the newly upgraded Shane AO system with undithered M92 observations. Using a 6-parameter linear transformation to register images, the system delivers ~0.3 mas astrometric error over short-term observations of 2-3 minutes.

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.

Steady progress in AO-based instrumentation and high-contrast algorithms have led to rapid improvements in sensitivity and accuracy when characterizing circumstellar environments through direct imaging at near-infrared wavelengths. Here we will discuss some recent results from high-contrast imaging studies of exoplanets and disks, with a particular emphasis of results achieved within the context of the SEEDS survey. SEEDS uses the AOsupported HiCIAO camera on the Subaru telescope for achieving high contrast around typically young, nearby, and Sun-like stars. The survey has produced novel results in detection and characterization of both planet and disks in several different stages of evolution, some of which will be summarized here. Finally, we will discuss some future prospects for the SEEDS survey and beyond.

We review astronomical results in the visible (λ<1μm) with adaptive optics. Other than a brief period in the early 1990s, there has been little astronomical science done in the visible with AO until recently. The most productive visible AO system to date is our 6.5m Magellan telescope AO system (MagAO). MagAO is an advanced Adaptive Secondary system at the Magellan 6.5m in Chile. This secondary has 585 actuators with < 1 msec response times (0.7 ms typically). We use a pyramid wavefront sensor. The relatively small actuator pitch (~23 cm/subap) allows moderate Strehls to be obtained in the visible (0.63-1.05 microns). We use a CCD AO science camera called “VisAO”. On-sky long exposures (60s) achieve <30mas resolutions, 30% Strehls at 0.62 microns (r') with the VisAO camera in 0.5” seeing with bright R < 8 mag stars. These relatively high visible wavelength Strehls are made possible by our powerful combination of a next generation ASM and a Pyramid WFS with 378 controlled modes and 1000 Hz loop frequency. We'll review the key steps to having good performance in the visible and review the exciting new AO visible science opportunities and refereed publications in both broad-band (r,i,z,Y) and at Halpha for exoplanets, protoplanetary disks, young stars, and emission line jets. These examples highlight the power of visible AO to probe circumstellar regions/spatial resolutions that would otherwise require much larger diameter telescopes with classical infrared AO cameras.

From 2008 December to 2012 September, the NICI (Near-Infrared Coronagraphic Imager at the Gemini-South 8.1-m) Planet-Finding Campaign (Liu et al. 2010) obtained deep, high-contrast AO imaging of a carefully selected sample of over 200 young, nearby stars. In the course of the campaign, we discovered four co-moving brown dwarf companions: PZ Tel B (36±6 M_Jup, 16.4±1.0 AU), CD-35 2722B (31±8 M_Jup, 67±4 AU), HD 1160B (33⁺¹² _-9 M_Jup, 81± AU), and HIP 79797Bb (55⁺²⁰_-19M_Jup, 3 AU from the previously known brown dwarf companion HIP 79797Ba), as well as numerous stellar binaries. Three survey papers have been published to date, covering: 1) high mass stars (Nielsen et al. 2013), 2) debris disk stars (Wahhaj et al. 2013), and 3) stars which are members of nearby young moving groups (Biller et al. 2013). In addition, the Campaign has yielded new orbital constraints for the ~8-10 MJup planet Pic β (Nielsen et al. 2014) and a high precision measurement of the star-disk offset for the well-known disk around HR 4796A (Wahhaj et al. 2014). Here we discuss constraints placed on the distribution of wide giant exoplanets from the NICI Campaign, new substellar companion discoveries, and characterization both of exoplanets and circumstellar disks.

During phase B, CANARY, the MOAO demonstrator, has been coupled to a dedicated, high sensitivity, near-IR camera based on a science grade NICMOS detector: CAMICAz. Using this combination, we have observed two distant merging systems at H and K in July 2013, with a resolution better than 150 mas over long exposures (< 1h). In this paper, we present this unique demo science data set, detail the performance achieved in terms of resolution and sensitivity and the first scientific results. Additionally, we provide a comparative study of the scientific output of MOAO with respect to classical LGS AO and HST.

Current AO observations rely heavily on the AO188 instrument, a 188-elements system that can operate in natural or laser guide star (LGS) mode, and delivers diffraction-limited images in near-IR. In its LGS mode, laser light is transported from the solid state laser to the launch telescope by a single mode fiber. AO188 can feed several instruments: the infrared camera and spectrograph (IRCS), a high contrast imaging instrument (HiCIAO) or an optical integral field spectrograph (Kyoto-3DII). Adaptive optics development in support of exoplanet observations has been and continues to be very active. The Subaru Coronagraphic Extreme-AO (SCExAO) system, which combines extreme-AO correction with advanced coronagraphy, is in the commissioning phase, and will greatly increase Subaru Telescope’s ability to image and study exoplanets. SCExAO currently feeds light to HiCIAO, and will soon be combined with the CHARIS integral field spectrograph and the fast frame MKIDs exoplanet camera, which have both been specifically designed for high contrast imaging. SCExAO also feeds two visible-light single pupil interferometers: VAMPIRES and FIRST. In parallel to these direct imaging activities, a near-IR high precision spectrograph (IRD) is under development for observing exoplanets with the radial velocity technique. Wide-field adaptive optics techniques are also being pursued. The RAVEN multi-object adaptive optics instrument was installed on Subaru telescope in early 2014. Subaru Telescope is also planning wide field imaging with ground-layer AO with the ULTIMATE-Subaru project.

The DKIST wavefront correction system will be an integral part of the telescope, providing active alignment control, wavefront correction, and jitter compensation to all DKIST instruments. The wavefront correction system will operate in four observing modes, diffraction-limited, seeing-limited on-disk, seeing-limited coronal, and limb occulting with image stabilization. Wavefront correction for DKIST includes two major components: active optics to correct low-order wavefront and alignment errors, and adaptive optics to correct wavefront errors and high-frequency jitter caused by atmospheric turbulence. The adaptive optics system is built around a fast tip-tilt mirror and a 1600 actuator deformable mirror, both of which are controlled by an FPGA-based real-time system running at 2 kHz. It is designed to achieve on-axis Strehl of 0.3 at 500 nm in median seeing (r₀ = 7 cm) and Strehl of 0.6 at 630 nm in excellent seeing (r₀ = 20 cm). We present the current status of the DKIST high-order adaptive optics, focusing on system design, hardware procurements, and error budget management.

A multi-conjugate adaptive optics systems has been deployed at the 1.5-meter solar telescope GREGOR for on-sun experiments of MCAO in November 2013. GREGOR MCAO incorporates three deformable mirrors (DMs) conjugate to 0, 8, and 25 km line of sight distance. Two correlating Shack-Hartmann wavefront sensor units are deployed: a high-order on-axis wavefront sensor (OA-WFS) with 10-cm subapertures and 10 arcsec field of view, and a low-order multi-direction wavefront sensor (MD-WFS) with 50-cm subapertures that sample the wavefront in 19 guide regions distributed over one arcminute. The MCAO loop was closed repeatedly in November ’13, as well as in January and May ’14. However, in particular strong static aberrations that were not removed well by the system, derogated the image in the MCAO compensated focal plane. GREGOR MCAO is now permanently installed and available for experiments that shall advance the development of solar MCAO.

The extreme AO system, SAXO (SPHERE AO for eXoplanet Observation), is the heart of the SPHERE system, feeding the scientific instruments with flat wave front corrected from all the atmospheric turbulence and internal defects. We will present the final performance of SAXO obtained during the instrument AIT in Europe as well as the very first on-sky results. The main requirements and system characteristics will be recalled and the full AO loop performance will be quantified and compared to original specifications. It will be demonstrated that SAXO meets or even exceeds (especially its limit magnitude and its jitter residuals) its challenging requirements (more than 90% of SR in H band and a 3 mas residual jitter). Finally, after 10 years of AO developments, from early design to final on-sky implementations, some critical system aspects as well as some important lesson-learned will be presented in the perspective of the future generation of complex AO systems for VLTs and ELTs.

Gender equality in modern societies is a topic that never fails to raise passion and controversy, in spite of the large body of research material and studies currently available to inform the general public and scientists alike. This paper brings the gender equity and equality discussion on the Adaptive Optics community doorstep. Its aim is threefold: (1) Raising awareness about the gender gap in science and astronomy in general, and in Adaptive Optics in particular; (2) Providing a snapshot of real and/or perceived causes for the gender gap existing in science and engineering; and (3) Presenting a range of practical solutions which have been or are being implemented at various institutions in order to bridge this gap and increase female participation at all levels of the scientific enterprise. Actual data will be presented to support aim (1), including existing gender data in science, engineering and astronomy, as well as original data specific to the Adaptive Optics community to be gathered in time for presentation at this conference. (2) will explore the often complex causes converging to explain gender equity issues that are deeply rooted in our male-dominated culture, including: conscious and unconscious gender biases in perceptions and attitudes, worklife balance, n-body problem, fewer numbers of female leaders and role models, etc. Finally, (3) will offer examples of conscious and pro-active gender equity measures which are helping to bring the female to male ratio closer to its desirable 50/50 target in science and astronomy.

In the past years, intensive Site Characterization campaigns have been performed to chose the sites for the future giant ELTs. Various atmospheric turbulence profilers with different resolution and sensed altitude ranges have been used, as well as climatological tools and satellite data analysis. Mixing long term statistics at low altitude resolution with high resolution data collected during short term campaigns allows to produce the reference profiles as input to the Adaptive Optics instrument performance estimators. In this paper I will perform a brief review of the principal and most used instruments and tools in order to give to the reader a panorama of the work and the efforts to monitor the atmospheric turbulence for astronomical purposes.

Two algorithms were recently studied for C²_n profiling from wide-field Adaptive Optics (AO) measurements on GeMS (Gemini Multi-Conjugate AO system). They both rely on the Slope Detection and Ranging (SLODAR) approach, using spatial covariances of the measurements issued from various wavefront sensors. The first algorithm estimates the C²_n profile by applying the truncated least-squares inverse of a matrix modeling the response of slopes covariances to various turbulent layer heights. In the second method, the profile is estimated by deconvolution of these spatial cross-covariances of slopes. We compare these methods in the new configuration of ESO Adaptive Optics Facility (AOF), a high-order multiple laser system under integration. For this, we use measurements simulated by the AO cluster of ESO. The impact of the measurement noise and of the outer scale of the atmospheric turbulence is analyzed. The important influence of the outer scale on the results leads to the development of a new step for outer scale fitting included in each algorithm. This increases the reliability and robustness of the turbulence strength and profile estimations.

The identification and prediction of time-varying wavefront errors in adaptive optics (AO) systems promises fainter limiting guide star magnitudes and improved temporal bandwidth errors. In a new UCSC-LLNL collaboration, we aim to demonstrate the power of predictive Fourier controllers for AO in the laboratory and on-sky. We have used the Fourier Wind Identification technique to measure wind velocities at several telescopes, and now have demonstrated the identification of frozen flow turbulence with a translating phase screen on a laboratory test bench. Here, we present identification of the wind direction and velocity using telemetry data from a laboratory testbed simulating the ShaneAO system geometry. Our wind identification system uses a Fourier decomposition technique to identify the correlated movement of the atmosphere from WFS telemetry data, which are then used to construct a Kalman filter for real-time operation. We demonstrate the use of an LQG controller with the ShaneAO system architecture, and show that the effects of frozen flow turbulence can be easily identified in laboratory telemetry. We describe the adaptations made to the LQG controller to integrate it into the dual-DM architecture of the ShaneAO system, and demonstrate that these modifications produce stable and well-understood AO correction in the laboratory.

One of the primary goals of exoplanet science is to find and characterize habitable planets, and direct imaging will play a key role in this effort. Though imaging a true Earth analog is likely out of reach from the ground, the coming generation of giant telescopes will find and characterize many planets in and near the habitable zones (HZs) of nearby stars. Radial velocity and transit searches indicate that such planets are common, but imaging them will require achieving extreme contrasts at very small angular separations, posing many challenges for adaptive optics (AO) system design. Giant planets in the HZ may even be within reach with the latest generation of high-contrast imagers for a handful of very nearby stars. Here we will review the definition of the HZ, and the characteristics of detectable planets there. We then review some of the ways that direct imaging in the HZ will be different from the typical exoplanet imaging survey today. Finally, we present preliminary results from our observations of the HZ of α Centauri A with the Magellan AO system’s VisAO and Clio2 cameras.

Contrast limit for the direct imaging of extrasolar planets from ground based adaptive optics (AO) observations is set by the presence of static and slow-varying aberrations in the optical path that lead to the science instrument. To complement the otherwise highly successful angular differential imaging (ADI) technique toward small angular separation, we propose to employ additional wavefront control to modulate the diffraction. This flexible approach introduces enough diversity to discriminate genuine structures of the observed target from spurious diffraction features in the image. One possible implementation of such form of coherence differential imaging (CDI) is a speckle nulling algorithm that iteratively suppresses diffraction features inside a region constrained by the number of active elements of the deformable mirror modulating the wavefront, and the coronagraph. This paper presents on-sky results obtained with this approach, on the Subaru Coronagraphic Extreme AO (SCExAO) instrument.

Palomar’s Project 1640 (P1640) is the first stellar coronagraph to regularly use active coronagraphic wavefront control (CWFC). For this it has a hierarchy of offset wavefront sensors (WFS), the most important of which is the higher-order WFS (called CAL), which tracks quasi-static modes between 2-35 cycles-per-aperture. The wavefront is measured in the coronagraph at 0.01 Hz rates, providing slope targets to the upstream Palm 3000 adaptive optics (AO) system. The CWFC handles all non-common path distortions up to the coronagraphic focal plane mask, but does not sense second order modes between the WFSs and the science integral field unit (IFU); these modes determine the system’s current limit. We have two CWFC operating modes: (1) P-mode, where we only control phases, generating double-sided darkholes by correcting to the largest controllable spatial frequencies, and (2) E-mode, where we can control amplitudes and phases, generating single-sided dark-holes in specified regions-of-interest. We describe the performance and limitations of both these modes, and discuss the improvements we are considering going forward.

One of the science missions for the next generation of extremely large ground based telescopes (30-42m apertures) is the imaging and spectroscopy of exoplanets. To achieve that goal an Adaptive Optics (AO) subsystem with a very large number of corrected modes is required. To provide contrast ratios in the range of 10^-9 or better for a 42m telescope an AO system with 25,000 to 60,000 channels will be needed. This is approximately an order of magnitude beyond the current state of the art. Adaptive Optics Associates Xinetics has developed the Photonex Module Deformable Mirror (DM) technology specifically to address the needs of extreme AO for high contrast applications. A Photonex Module is a monolithic block of electrostrictive ceramic in which a high density of individually addressable actuators are formed by screen printing of electrodes and partial wire saw cutting of the ceramic. The printed electrode structures also allow all electrical connections to be made at the back surface of the module via flex circuits. Actuator spacings of 1mm or less have been achieved using this approach. The individual modules can be edge butted and bonded to achieve high actuator count. The largest DMs fabricated to date have 4096 actuators in a 64X64mm array. In this paper the engineering challenges in extending this technology by a factor of ten or more in actuator count will be discussed. A conceptual design for a DM suitable for XAO will be presented. Approaches for a support structure that will maintain the low spatial frequency surface figure of this large (~0.6m) DM and for the electrical interface to the tens of thousands of actuators will be discussed. Finally, performance estimates will be presented.

While the Deformable Secondary Mirror for the VLT is tested with the GRAAL adaptive system, the M4 adaptive mirror design is approaching detailed design. Although the two designs use the voice coil technology developed by Microgate and ADS, the M4 Unit requirements are more stringent. The M4 unit aims to provide adaptive correction and to cancel part of telescope wind shaking and static aberrations. The final specifications have been settled and the key performances will be demonstrated shortly on a one meter prototype. We present the main design drivers and associated requirements. We discuss what the challenges are in terms of stability and performance of the associated key technologies. We additionally describe the selected design, the current status of the project and the required schedule and work plan to manufacture the E-ELT quaternary mirror.

The performances of high resolution magnetic deformable mirrors have been recently improved: the mechanical bandwidth has been increased to 2 kHz, and a fast stroboscopic Shack-Harman wavefront was used to measure a settling time as low as 400μs. Recent improvements in the substrate-thinning processes made possible the availability of large, high-quality membranes compatible with deformable mirrors. Prototype testing and simulations show that devices with up to 60x60 actuators are now possible. For open-loop operations, a novel feed-forward algorithm was developed to compensate for residual creeping and improve the DM stability to below10nm RMS over 6 hours.

The Enhanced Resolution Imager and Spectrograph (ERIS) is the new Adaptive Optics based instrument for ESO’s VLT aiming at replacing NACO and SINFONI to form a single compact facility with AO fed imaging and integral field unit spectroscopic scientific channels. ERIS completes the instrument suite at the VLT adaptive telescope. In particular it is equipped with a versatile AO system that delivers up to 95% Strehl correction in K band for science observations up to 5 micron It comprises high order NGS and LGS correction enabling the observation from exoplanets to distant galaxies with a large sky coverage thanks to the coupling of the LGS WFS with the high sensitivity of its visible WFS and the capability to observe in dust embedded environment thanks to its IR low order WFS. ERIS will be installed at the Cassegrain focus of the VLT unit hosting the Adaptive Optics Facility (AOF). The wavefront correction is provided by the AOF deformable secondary mirror while the Laser Guide Star is provided by one of the four launch units of the 4 Laser Guide Star Facility for the AOF. The overall layout of the ERIS AO system is extremely compact and highly optimized: the SPIFFI spectrograph is fed directly by the Cassegrain focus and both the NIX’s (IR imager) and SPIFFI’s entrance windows work as visible/infrared dichroics. In this paper we describe the concept of the ERIS AO system in detail, starting from the requirements and going through the estimated performance, the opto-mechanical design and the Real-Time Computer design.

We report on the status of PALM-3000, the second generation adaptive optics instrument for the 5.1 meter Hale telescope at Palomar Observatory. PALM-3000 was released as a facility class instrument in October 2011, and has since been used on the Hale telescope a total of over 250 nights. In the past year, the PALM-3000 team introduced several instrument upgrades, including the release of the 32x32 pupil sampling mode which allows for correction on fainter guide stars, the upgrade of wavefront sensor relay optics, the diagnosis and repair of hardware problems, and the release of software improvements. We describe the performance of the PALM-3000 instrument as a result of these upgrades, and provide on-sky results. In the 32x32 pupil sampling mode (15.8 cm per subaperture), we have achieved K-band strehl ratios as high as 11% on a 14.4 mv star, and in the 64x64 pupil sampling mode (8.1 cm per subaperture), we have achieved K-band strehl ratios as high as 86% on stars brighter than 7^th m_v.

We present descriptions of the alignment and calibration tests of the Pathfinder, which achieved first light during our 2013 commissioning campaign at the LBT. The full LINC-NIRVANA instrument is a Fizeau interferometric imager with fringe tracking and 2-layer natural guide star multi-conjugate adaptive optics (MCAO) systems on each eye of the LBT. The MCAO correction for each side is achieved using a ground layer wavefront sensor that drives the LBT adaptive secondary mirror and a mid-high layer wavefront sensor that drives a Xinetics 349 actuator DM conjugated to an altitude of 7.1 km. When the LINC-NIRVANA MCAO system is commissioned, it will be one of only two such systems on an 8-meter telescope and the only such system in the northern hemisphere. In order to mitigate risk, we take a modular approach to commissioning by decoupling and testing the LINC-NIRVANA subsystems individually. The Pathfinder is the ground-layer wavefront sensor for the DX eye of the LBT. It uses 12 pyramid wavefront sensors to optically co-add light from natural guide stars in order to make four pupil images that sense ground layer turbulence. Pathfinder is now the first LINC-NIRVANA subsystem to be fully integrated with the telescope and commissioned on sky. Our 2013 commissioning campaign consisted of 7 runs at the LBT with the tasks of assembly, integration and communication with the LBT telescope control system, alignment to the telescope optical axis, off-sky closed loop AO calibration, and finally closed loop on-sky AO. We present the programmatics of this campaign, along with the novel designs of our alignment scheme and our off-sky calibration test, which lead to the Pathfinder’s first on-sky closed loop images.

The Gemini Multi-conjugate adaptive optics System (GeMS) at the Gemini South telescope in Cerro Pachon is the first sodium Laser Guide Star (LGS) adaptive optics (AO) system with multiple guide stars. It uses five LGSs and two deformable mirrors (DMs) to measure and compensate for distortions induced by atmospheric turbulence. After its 2012 commissioning phase, it is now transitioning into regular operations. Although GeMS has unique scientific capabilities, it remains a challenging instrument to maintain, operate and upgrade. In this paper, we summarize the latest news and results. First, we describe the engineering work done this past year, mostly during our last instrument shutdown in 2013 austral winter, covering many subsystems: an erroneous reconjugation of the Laser guide star wavefront sensor, the correction of focus field distortion for the natural guide star wavefront sensor and engineering changes dealing with our laser and its beam transfer optics. We also describe our revamped software, developed to integrate the instrument into the Gemini operational model, and the new optimization procedures aiming to reduce GeMS time overheads. Significant software improvements were achieved on the acquisition of natural guide stars by our natural guide star wavefront sensor, on the automation of tip-tilt and higher-order loop optimization, and on the tomographic non-common path aberration compensation. We then go through the current operational scheme and present the plan for the next years. We offered 38 nights in our last semester. We review the current system efficiency in term of raw performance, completed programs and time overheads. We also present our current efforts to merge GeMS into the Gemini base facility project, where night operations are all reliably driven from our La Serena headquarter, without the need for any spotter. Finally we present the plan for the future upgrades, mostly dedicated toward improving the performance and reliability of the system. Our first upgrade called NGS2, a project lead by the Australian National University, based a focal plane camera will replace the current low throughput natural guide wavefront sensor. On a longer term, we are also planning the (re-)integration of our third deformable mirror, lost during the early phase of commissioning. Early plans to improve the reliability of our laser will be presented.

The vertical profile of the mesospheric sodium layer varies significantly on a time scale of one minute. These variations can impact the random and systematic measurement errors of laser guide star Shack-Hartmann wave front sensors, particularly on extremely large telescopes. Sensor performance can be improved by selecting pixel processing weights matched to the sodium layer profile, assuming that the shape of the profile can be measured or estimated in real time. In this paper we describe the magnitude of these effects for the Thirty Meter Telescope AO system NFIRAOS. We review several existing approaches for measuring or estimating the sodium layer profile in real time. We then describe a new method for estimating the profile directly from the laser guide star wave front pixel intensities themselves, jointly with the subaperture tip/tilt measurements. The algorithm used for this purpose is based upon the multi-frame iterative blind deconvolution algorithm from image post processing: Subaperture tip/tilts and the sodium profile are estimated successively, bootstrapping the estimate of each quantity from the previous estimate of the other. We present promising initial simulation results on the potential performance of the algorithm, and suggest areas for future work.

The sky coverage and performance of laser guide star (LGS) adaptive optics (AO) systems is limited by the natural guide star (NGS) used for low order correction. This limitation can be dramatically reduced by measuring the tip and tilt of the NGS in the near-infrared where the NGS is partially corrected by the LGS AO system and where stars are generally several magnitudes brighter than at visible wavelengths. We present the design of a near-infrared tip-tilt sensor that has recently been integrated with the Keck I telescope’s LGS AO system along with some initial on-sky results. The implementation involved modifications to the AO bench, real-time control system, and higher level controls and operations software that will also be discussed. The tip-tilt sensor is a H2RG-based near-infrared camera with 0.05 arc second pixels. Low noise at high sample rates is achieved by only reading a small region of interest, from 2×2 to 16×16 pixels, centered on an NGS anywhere in the 100 arc second diameter field. The sensor operates at either Ks or H-band using light reflected by a choice of dichroic beamsplitters located in front of the OSIRIS integral field spectrograph.

Many adaptive optics (AO) systems in use today require the use of bright reference objects to determine the effects of atmospheric distortions. Typically these systems use Shack-Hartmann Wavefront sensors (SHWFS) to distribute incoming light from a reference object between a large number of sub-apertures. Guyon et al. evaluated the sensitivity of several different wavefront sensing techniques and proposed the non-linear Curvature Wavefront Sensor (nlCWFS) offering improved sensitivity across a range of orders of distortion. On large ground-based telescopes this can provide nearly 100% sky coverage using natural guide stars. We present work being undertaken on the nlCWFS development for the Adaptive Optics Lucky Imager (AOLI) project. The wavefront sensor is being developed as part of a low-order adaptive optics system for use in a dedicated instrument providing an AO corrected beam to a Lucky Imaging based science detector. The nlCWFS provides a total of four reference images on two photon-counting EMCCDs for use in the wavefront reconstruction process. We present results from both laboratory work using a calibration system and the first on-sky data obtained with the nlCWFS at the 4.2 metre William Herschel Telescope, La Palma. In addition, we describe the updated optical design of the wavefront sensor, strategies for minimising intrinsic effects and methods to maximise sensitivity using photon-counting detectors. We discuss on-going work to develop the high speed reconstruction algorithm required for the nlCWFS technique. This includes strategies to implement the technique on graphics processing units (GPUs) and to minimise computing overheads to obtain a prior for a rapid convergence of the wavefront reconstruction. Finally we evaluate the sensitivity of the wavefront sensor based upon both data and low-photon count strategies.

Laser assisted adaptive optics systems rely on Laser Guide Star (LGS) Wave-Front Sensors (WFS) for high order aberration measurements, and rely on Natural Guide Stars (NGS) WFS to complement the measurements on low orders such as tip-tilt and focus. The sky-coverage of the whole system is therefore related to the limiting magnitude of the NGS WFS. We have recently proposed LIFT, a novel phase retrieval WFS technique, that allows a 1 magnitude gain over the usually used 2×2 Shack-Hartmann WFS. After an in-lab validation, LIFT’s concept has been demonstrated on sky in open loop on GeMS (the Gemini Multiconjugate adaptive optics System at Gemini South). To complete its validation, LIFT now needs to be operated in closed loop in a laser assisted adaptive optics system. The present work gives a detailed analysis of LIFT’s behavior in presence of high order residuals and how to limit aliasing effects on the tip/tilt/focus estimation. Also, we study the high orders’ impact on noise propagation. For this purpose, we simulate a multiconjugate adaptive optics loop representative of a GeMS-like 5 LGS configuration. The residual high orders are derived from a Fourier based simulation. We demonstrate that LIFT keeps a high performance gain over the Shack-Hartmann 2×2 whatever the turbulence conditions. Finally, we show the first simulation of a closed loop with LIFT estimating turbulent tip/tilt and focus residuals that could be induced by sodium layer’s altitude variations.

A miniature curvature wavefront sensor with a coherent fiber image bundle is proposed in which a miniature lateral displacement beamsplitter is designed to obtain the intra- and extra- focus images from a telescope simultaneously at its exit. The two images are received and relayed by two coherent fiber image bundles. The relayed images are then re-imaged to one camera and processed to obtain the input wavefront at telescope pupil. The whole device is quite compact and can be driven by a “Starbug” fiber positioning device currently under development within the Australian Astronomical Observatory. In this paper, the performance of the proposed sensor is investigated in details by applying a simulated atmospheric turbulence at the telescope pupil plane. We study the offset distance of two image measurement planes, fiber core size, fiber fill factor and the magnitude of natural guide star effects to its performance. This study provides guidance to the sensor design.

With two large deformable mirrors with a total of more than 7000 actuators that need to be driven from the measurements of six 60x60 LGS WFSs (total 1.23Mpixels) at 800Hz with a latency of less than one frame, NFIRAOS presents an interesting real-time computing challenge. This paper reports on a recent trade study to evaluate which current technology could meet this challenge, with the plan to select a baseline architecture by the beginning of NFIRAOS construction in 2014. We have evaluated a number of architectures, ranging from very specialized layouts with custom boards to more generic architectures made from commercial off-the-shelf units (CPUs with or without accelerator boards). For each architecture, we have found the most suitable algorithm, mapped it onto the hardware and evaluated the performance through benchmarking whenever possible. We have evaluated a large number of criteria, including cost, power consumption, reliability and flexibility, and proceeded with scoring each architecture based on these criteria. We have found that, with today’s technology, the NFIRAOS requirements are well within reach of off-the-shelf commercial hardware running a parallel implementation of the straightforward matrix-vector multiply (MVM) algorithm for wave-front reconstruction. Even accelerators such as GPUs and Xeon Phis are no longer necessary. Indeed, we have found that the entire NFIRAOS RTC can be handled by seven 2U high-end PC-servers using 10GbE connectivity. Accelerators are only required for the off-line process of updating the matrix control matrix every ~10s, as observing conditions change.

Driving adaptive optics (AO) systems with thousands of degrees of freedom in real-time is one of the major challenges faced by the astronomical community for the design of the next generation of giant telescopes such as the E-ELT, the TMT or the GMT. PRANA (Prototype Real-time Architecture for the Next generation Ao) is a pathfinder for a reliable, scalable and energy efficient GPU-based AO real-time controller able to target the extremely large telescopes case. We will discuss the challenges in driving the next generation AO in real-time, give a detailed description of the demonstrator and present the first benchmarks obtained in the lab.

We present advances on Spline based ABerration REconstruction (SABRE) from (Shack-)Hartmann (SH) wavefront measurements for large-scale adaptive optics systems. SABRE locally models the wavefront with simplex B-spline basis functions on triangular partitions which are defined on the SH subaperture array. This approach allows high accuracy through the possible use of nonlinear basis functions and great adaptability to any wavefront sensor and pupil geometry. The main contribution of this paper is a distributed wavefront reconstruction method, D-SABRE, which is a 2 stage procedure based on decomposing the sensor domain into sub-domains each supporting a local SABRE model. D-SABRE greatly decreases the computational complexity of the method and removes the need for centralized reconstruction while obtaining a reconstruction accuracy for simulated E-ELT turbulences within 1% of the global method's accuracy. Further, a generalization of the methodology is proposed making direct use of SH intensity measurements which leads to an improved accuracy of the reconstruction compared to centroid algorithms using spatial gradients.

We have implemented the linear quadratic Gaussian (LQG) controller in our physical optics sky coverage simulator (MAOS) for the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT) Narrow Field InFrared Adaptive Optics System (NFIRAOS) aimed for improved correction of tip/tilt and plate scale modes. The LQG controller has a built-in capability to correct narrow frequency vibrations that are above the closed loop bandwidth of the system and is a very desirable solution for this application. The LQG controller is tuned with the combined power spectral density (PSD) of turbulence, wind shake, and vibration computed from the telemetry. We will show how LQG performs for various telescope/instrument vibration spectral (such as broadband or drifting peaks). We will also show the performance and sky coverage of LQG in comparison with single or double integrator controllers for correcting low order atmospheric turbulence with a set of up to three tip/tilt(/focus) natural guide star wavefront sensors. We found that the LQG controller reduces the median sky coverage wavefront error by 25 nm in quadrature.

This paper discusses static and dynamic tomographic wave-front (WF) reconstructors tailored to Multi-Object Adaptive Optics (MOAO) for Raven, the first MOAO science and technology demonstrator recently installed on an 8m telescope. We show the results of a new minimum mean- square error (MMSE) solution based on spatio-angular (SA) correlation functions, which extends previous work in Correia et al, JOSA-A 2013¹ to adopt a zonal representation of the wave-front and its associated signals. This solution is outlined for the static reconstruction and then extended for the use of stand-alone temporal prediction and as a prediction model in a pupil plane based Linear Quadratic Gaussian (LQG) algorithm. We have fully tested our algorithms in the lab and compared the results to simulations of the Raven system. These simulations have shown that an increase in limiting magnitude of up to one magnitude can be expected when prediction is implemented and up to two magnitudes when the LQG is used.

The Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT) with its first-light multi-conjugate adaptive optics system, NFIRAOS, and high-resolution imager, IRIS, is expected to take differential astrometric measurements with an accuracy on the order of tens of micro arcsec. This requires the control, correction, characterization and calibration of a large number of error sources and uncertainties, many of which have magnitudes much in excess of this level of accuracy. In addition to designing the observatory such that very high precision and accuracy astrometric observations are enabled, satisfying the TMT requirements can only be achieved by a careful calibration, observation and data reduction strategy. In this paper, we present descriptions of the individual errors sources, how and when they apply to different astrometry science cases and the mitigation methods required for each of them, as well as example results for individual error terms and the overall error budgets for a variety of different science cases.

The NGSAO, a single conjugated AO system operating with natural guide star, will be the first AO system to be operative at the Giant Magellan Telescope. The Natural Guide star Wavefront Sensor will be in charge of the entire wavefront error measurement, namely atmospheric turbulence and telescope aberrations, including the segment differential piston error. In this paper we report the opto-mechanical design of the NGWS that successfully passed the preliminary design review in July 2013. Moreover, we present the NGSAO control strategy identified for the GMT segmented pupil and the system performances for different conditions of seeing and reference star magnitude.

CANARY is the multi-object adaptive optics (MOAO) on-sky demonstrator developed by Durham University and LESIA Observatoire de Paris, in the perspective of the E-ELT. Since 2013, CANARY has been operating with 3 off-axis NGS and 4 off-axis Rayleigh LGS and compensating for one on-axis NGS observed with a near IR camera and the Truth Sensor (TS) for diagnostic purpose. In this paper, we present the tomographic performance of CANARY during the runs in 2013. We propose a detailed analysis of the tomographic error leading to the establishment of the CANARY wave-front error budget. In particular we are able to evaluate the tomographic error for each altitude in the atmosphere for a given reconstructor by modelling a set of one-layer covariance matrices. This tool allows us to understand the tradeoffs to be made in the building of the tomographic reconstructor. We present two methods for the wavefront error budget computation. The DTI one uses input system parameters and open loop WFS slopes to estimate the error in a number of independent terms. The DMTS method directly uses the Truth Sensor measurements to estimate the error. We show a good agreement between the two approaches making us confident in our modelling of the instrument. We derive estimations of the Strehl ratio from the error variance and compare them to the recorded IR image Strehl ratio. We find a good agreement between the two, hence validating our wavefront error analysis. Finally we present an on-sky validation of the tomographic reconstruction using LGS based on GLAO and MOAO data. We also quantify the gain brought by the LGS, comparing results obtained in MOAO with 3 NGS and with or without LGS in the wavefront measurements.

We present a method for the restoration of astronomical images obtained with Adaptive Optics (AO) systems. In order to maximize the scientific return from AO data and, in general, from the data of the next generation telescopes, we developed a restoration method based on deconvolution for the de-blurring of images degraded by a spatially variable PSF. The deconvolution method is based on a partition of the image domain in partially overlapping sub-domains where the PSF can be assumed to be space invariant. The software, called Patch, is written in IDL language and is freely distributed to the community. Here we report a general description of the method and of its graphical interface. The potentiality of the Software Patch have been tested on two completely different astrophysical scenarios: a crowded stellar field and an extended galaxy. Despite the very conservative assumptions made on the Point Spread Function (assumed to be strongly variable across the field of view), we obtained good results in terms of image reconstruction both for the stellar (point-like) case and for the extended galaxy.

We review the theory and use of phase retrieval and phase diversity in astronomy. Phase retrieval (PR) uses the image of a star to estimate T, the phase aberration introduced by the atmosphere and the telescope. Phase diversity (PD) is an extension of PR in which changes (diversities) are added to T so that both T and an extended object under observation can be estimated. In 1990, when the Hubble Space Telescope was found to have an optical flaw both PD and PR were used to help scientists determine a prescription to fix the flaw. A more recent use includes fine phasing of the test bed for the James Webb Space Telescope. Proposed uses include exoplanet imaging and sequential diversity imaging, in which sequential changes in the AO are the diversities. The major advantage of these methods is that they need no auxiliary hardware, like a guide star or a Shack-Hartmann wavefront sensor.

The delivered image quality of ground-based telescopes depends greatly on atmospheric turbulence. At every observatory, the majority of the turbulence (up to 60-80% of the total) occurs in the ground layer of the atmosphere, that is, the first few hundred meters above the telescope pupil. Correction of these perturbations can, therefore, greatly increase the quality of the image. We use Ground-layer Wavefront Sensors (GWSs) to sense the ground layer turbulence for the LINC-NIRVANA (LN) instrument, which is in its final integration phase before shipment to the Large Binocular Telescope (LBT) on Mt. Graham in Arizona.¹⁹ LN is an infrared Fizeau interferometer, equipped with an advanced Multi-Conjugate Adaptive Optics (MCAO) module, capable of delivering images with a spatial resolution equivalent to that of a ~23m diameter telescope. It exploits the Layer-Oriented, Multiple Field of View, MCAO approach³ and uses only natural guide stars for the correction. The GWS has more than 100 degrees of freedom. There are opto-mechanical complexities at the level of sub- systems, the GWS as a whole, and at the interface with the telescope. Also, there is a very stringent requirement on the superposition of the pupils on the detector. All these conditions make the alignment of the GWS very demanding and crucial. In this paper, we discuss the alignment and integration of the left-eye GWS of LN and detail the various tests done in the lab at INAF-Padova to verify proper system operation and performance.

The project, "ULTIMATE- SUBARU", stands for "Ultra-wide Laser Tomographic Imager and MOS with AO for Transcendent Exploration at SUBARU Telescope." ULTIMATE-SUBARU provides a wide-field near infrared instrument at Cassegrain focus with GLAO. Performance simulation of GLAO at Subaru Telescope indicates that uniform PSFs can be obtained across the field of view up to 20 arcmin in diameter. This paper describes a current status of ULTIMATE-SUBARU project, science objectives, performance simulation update, system overview, feasibility of adaptive secondary mirror, and laser system.

GRAVITY, a second generation instrument for the Very Large Telescope Interferometer (VLTI), will provide an astrometric precision of order 10 micro-arcseconds, an imaging resolution of 4 milli-arcseconds, and low/medium resolution spectro-interferometry. These improvements to the VLTI represent a major upgrade to its current infrared interferometric capabilities, allowing detailed study of obscured environments (e.g. the Galactic Center, young dusty planet-forming disks, dense stellar cores, AGN, etc...). Crucial to the final performance of GRAVITY, the Coudé IR Adaptive Optics (CIAO) system will correct for the effects of the atmosphere at each of the VLT Unit Telescopes. CIAO consists of four new infrared Shack-Hartmann wavefront sensors (WFS) and associated real-time computers/software which will provide infrared wavefront sensing from 1.45-2.45 microns, allowing AO corrections even in regions where optically bright reference sources are scarce. We present here the latest progress on the GRAVITY wavefront sensors. We describe the adaptation and testing of a light-weight version of the ESO Standard Platform for Adaptive optics Real Time Applications (SPARTA-Light) software architecture to the needs of GRAVITY. We also describe the latest integration and test milestones for construction of the initial wave front sensor.

We report on the multi-conjugate adaptive optics (MCAO) system of the New Solar Telescope (NST) at Big Bear Solar Observatory which has been integrated in October 2013 and is now available for MCAO experiments. The NST MCAO system features three deformable mirrors (DM), and it is purposely flexible in order to offer a valuable facility for development of solar MCAO. Two of the deformable mirrors are dedicated to compensation of field dependent aberrations due to high-altitude turbulence, whereas the other deformable mirror compensates field independent aberrations in a pupil image. The opto-mechanical design allows for changing the conjugate plane of the two high-altitude DMs independently between two and nine kilometers. The pupil plane DM can be placed either in a pupil image upstream of the high-altitude DMs or downstream. This capability allows for performing experimental studies on the impact of the geometrical order of the deformable mirrors and the conjugate position. The control system is flexible, too, which allows for real-world analysis of various control approaches. This paper gives an overview of the NST MCAO system and reveals the first MCAO corrected image taken at Big Bear Solar Observatory.

GALACSI is the Adaptive Optics (AO) modules of the ESO Adaptive Optics Facility (AOF) that will correct the wavefront delivered to the MUSE Integral Field Spectrograph. It will sense with four 40×40 subapertures Shack-Hartmann wavefront sensors the AOF 4 Laser Guide Stars (LGS), acting on the 1170 voice-coils actuators of the Deformable Secondary Mirror (DSM). GALACSI has two operating modes: in Wide Field Mode (WFM), with the four LGS at 64” off axis, the collected energy in a 0.2”×0.2” pixel will be enhanced by a factor 2 at 750 nm over a Field of View (FoV) of 1’×1’ using the Ground Layer AO (GLAO) technique. The other mode, the Narrow Field Mode (NFM), provides an enhanced wavefront correction (Strehl Ratio (SR) of 5% (goal 10%) at 650 nm) but in a smaller FoV (7.5”×7.5”), using Laser Tomography AO (LTAO), with the 4 LGS located closer, at 10” off axis. Before being shipped to Paranal, GALACSI will be first integrated and fully tested in stand-alone, and then moved to a dedicated AOF facility to be tested with the DSM in Europe. At present the module is fully assembled, its main functionalities have been implemented and verified, and AO system tests with the DSM are starting. We present here the main system features and the results of the internal functional tests of GALACSI.

We have developed a portable solar and stellar adaptive optics (PSSAO) system, which is optimized for solar and stellar high-resolution imaging in the near infrared wavelength range. Our PSSAO features compact physical size, low cost and high performance. The AO software is based on LabVIEW programing and the mechanical and optical components are based on off-the-shelf commercial components, which make a high quality, duplicable and rapid developed AO system possible. In addition, our AO software is flexible, and can be used with different telescopes with or without central obstruction. We discuss our portable AO design philosophy, and present our recent on-site observation results. According to our knowledge, this is the first portable adaptive optics in the world that is able to work for solar and stellar high-resolution imaging with good performances.

The LINC-NIRVANA Pathfinder experiment is a test-bed to verify a very complex sub-system: the Ground-layer Wavefront Sensor, or GWS. Pathfinder will test the GWS in its final working environment and demonstrate on-sky the performance achievable with a multiple natural guide star, ground-layer adaptive optics system with a very wide FoV. The GWS uses up to 12 natural guide stars within a 2.8'-6' annular field of view and drives the LBT adaptive secondary mirror to correct the lower layers of atmospheric turbulence. This paper will trace the path of the instrument on its way to First Light on-sky in November 2013, from its installation on the telescope to the calibrations to its final operation, focusing in particular on opto-mechanical and software aspects and how they lead to the main achieved results.

The Lick Observatory's Shane 3-meter telescope has been upgraded with a new infrared instrument (ShARCS - Shane Adaptive optics infraRed Camera and Spectrograph) and dual-deformable mirror adaptive optics (AO) system (ShaneAO). We present first-light measurements of imaging sensitivity in the Ks band. We compare mea- sured results to predicted signal-to-noise ratio and magnitude limits from modeling the emissivity and throughput of ShaneAO and ShARCS. The model was validated by comparing its results to the Keck telescope adaptive optics system model and then by estimating the sky background and limiting magnitudes for IRCAL, the pre- vious infra-red detector on the Shane telescope, and comparing to measured, published results. We predict that the ShaneAO system will measure lower sky backgrounds and achieve 20% higher throughput across the JHK bands despite having more optical surfaces than the current system. It will enable imaging of fainter objects (by 1-2 magnitudes) and will be faster to reach a fiducial signal-to-noise ratio by a factor of 10-13. We highlight the improvements in performance over the previous AO system and its camera, IRCAL.

The CHARA array is an optical interferometer with six 1-meter diameter telescopes, providing baselines from 33 to 331 meters. With sub-milliarcsecond angular resolution, its versatile visible and near infrared combiners offer a unique angle of studying nearby stellar systems by spatially resolving their detailed structures. To improve the sensitivity and scientific throughput, the CHARA array was funded by NSF-ATI in 2011 to install adaptive optics (AO) systems on all six telescopes. The initial grant covers Phase I of the AO systems, which includes on-telescope Wavefront Sensors (WFS) and non-common-path (NCP) error correction. Meanwhile we are seeking funding for Phase II which will add large Deformable Mirrors on telescopes to close the full AO loop. The corrections of NCP error and static aberrations in the optical system beyond the WFS are described in the second paper of this series. This paper describes the design of the common-path optical system and the on-telescope WFS, and shows the on-sky commissioning results.

We are developing a new adaptive optics (AO) system for the 60cm domeless solar telescope of the Hida Observatory, Japan. The system has a deformable mirror with 97 piezo-actuators, a Shack-Hartmann wavefront sensor with a 10×10-microlens array and standard personal computers. We conducted solar observations in September, 2013, and confirmed that our AO system cancelled image-shifts so that the deviations were within the resolution of the telescope. We report the detailed performances of our new AO system.

We present the current optical design of the Relay Optics (RO) dedicated to the single-conjugate adaptive optics (SCAO) mode for the first light E-ELT imaging camera MICADO. MICADO is a wide-field near-IR camera featuring a 75 arcsec field of view, with spectrographic, astrometric, and coronagraphic capabilities. It has been chosen by ESO as one of the two first-light instruments. MICADO will be optimized for the multi-conjugate adaptive optics module MAORY and will also work in SCAO mode to provide a high-level, on-axis correction (making use of the adaptive secondary M4 in the telescope). For full scientific exploitation and in a phase approach for developing AO performance at the ELT, a SCAO mode is needed for MICADO. It will be a joint development between the MICADO and MAORY consortia and in the long term integrated in MAORY. Different options are presented to accommodate different set of requirements, the development plan of MICADO and MAORY instruments will lead to the final configuration and the used of the SCAO and its RO. They allow Coronagraphic observations providing an intermediate pupil plane to accommodate an atmospheric dispersion corrector and an apodizer.

Argos is the ground-layer adaptive optics system for the Large Binocular Telescope. In order to perform its wide-field correction, Argos uses three laser guide stars which sample the atmospheric turbulence. To perform the correction, Argos has at disposal three different wavefront sensing measurements : its three laser guide stars, a NGS tip-tilt, and a third wavefront sensor. We present the wavefront sensing architecture and its individual components, in particular: the finalized Argos pnCCD camera detecting the 3 laser guide stars at 1kHz, high quantum efficiency and 4e^- noise; the Argos tip-tilt sensor based on a quad-cell avalanche photo-diodes; and the Argos wavefront computer. Being in the middle of the commissioning, we present the first wavefront sensing configurations and operations performed at LBT, and discuss further improvements in the measurements of the 3 laser guide star slopes as detected by the pnCCD.

In this paper we present Big Bear Solar Observatory’s (BBSO) newest adaptive optics system – AO-308. AO-308 is a result of collaboration between BBSO and National Solar Observatory (NSO). AO-308 uses a 357 actuators deformable mirror (DM) from Xinetics and its wave front sensor (WFS) has 308 sub-apertures. The WFS uses a Phantom V7.3 camera which runs at 2000 Hz with the region of interest of 416×400 pixels. AO-308 utilizes digital signal processors (DSPs) for image processing. AO-308 has been successfully used during the 2013 observing season. The system can correct up to 310 modes providing diffraction limited images at all wavelengths of interest.

This paper describes the current opto-mechanical design of NFIRAOS (Narrow Field InfraRed Adaptive Optics System) for the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT). The preliminary design update review for NFIRAOS was successfully held in December 2011, and incremental design progress has since occurred on several fronts. The majority of NFIRAOS is housed within an insulated and cooled enclosure, and operates at -30 C to reduce background emissivity. The cold optomechanics are attached to a space-frame structure, kinematically supported by bipods that penetrate the insulated enclosure. The bipods are attached to an exo-structure at ambient temperature, which also supports up to three client science instruments and a science calibration unit.

Altair is the facility single conjugate AO system for Gemini North. Although it has been in operation for more than 10 years (and upgraded to LGS in 2007), Altair's performance is degraded by three main issues: vibrations of the telescope and instrument support structure, spatial aliasing on centroid offsets from the M2 support structure print-through on the optical surface and static non-common path aberrations. Monte-Carlo simulations can reproduce the behavior of Altair when including these three effects and they are roughly of the same order of magnitude. Solutions or mitigations are being investigated to overcome these nefarious effects and restore Altair's performance to its nominal level. A simplex algorithm as well as a phase diversity approach are being investigated to measure and correct for static aberrations. A high accuracy phase map of the M2 print-through has been obtained and is being used to calibrate and/or filter centroids affected by aliasing. A new real time computer is under consideration, to be able to handle more advanced controllers, especially notch filters to combat vibrations. In this paper we will report on the various simulations and on-sky results of this rejuvenation of one of Gemini's workhorse instruments.

We present the instrument design and first light observations of KAPAO, a natural guide star adaptive optics (AO) system for the Pomona College Table Mountain Observatory (TMO) 1-meter telescope. The KAPAO system has dual science channels with visible and near-infrared cameras, a Shack-Hartmann wavefront sensor, and a commercially available 140-actuator MEMS deformable mirror. The pupil relays are two pairs of custom off-axis parabolas and the control system is based on a version of the Robo-AO control software. The AO system and telescope are remotely operable, and KAPAO is designed to share the Cassegrain focus with the existing TMO polarimeter. We discuss the extensive integration of undergraduate students in the program including the multiple senior theses/capstones and summer assistantships amongst our partner institutions. This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 0960343.

We describe the design and first-light early science performance of the Shane Adaptive optics infraRed Camera- Spectrograph (ShARCS) on Lick Observatory’s 3-m Shane telescope. Designed to work with the new ShaneAO adaptive optics system, ShARCS is capable of high-efficiency, diffraction-limited imaging and low-dispersion grism spectroscopy in J, H, and K-bands. ShARCS uses a HAWAII-2RG infrared detector, giving high quantum efficiency (<80%) and Nyquist sampling the diffraction limit in all three wavelength bands. The ShARCS instrument is also equipped for linear polarimetry and is sensitive down to 650 nm to support future visible-light adaptive optics capability. We report on the early science data taken during commissioning.

A Cassegrain mounted adaptive optics instrument presents unique challenges for opto-mechanical design. The flexure and temperature tolerances for stability are tighter than those of seeing limited instruments. This criteria requires particular attention to material properties and mounting techniques. This paper addresses the mechanical designs developed to meet the optical functional requirements. One of the key considerations was to have gravitational deformations, which vary with telescope orientation, stay within the optical error budget, or ensure that we can compensate with a steering mirror by maintaining predictable elastic behavior. Here we look at several cases where deformation is predicted with finite element analysis and Hertzian deformation analysis and also tested. Techniques used to address thermal deformation compensation without the use of low CTE materials will also be discussed.

ERIS is the new Single Conjugate Adaptive Optics (AO) instrument for VLT in construction at ESO with the collaboration of Max-Planck Institut fuer Extraterrestrische Physik, ETH-Institute for Astronomy and INAF - Osservatorio Astrofisico di Arcetri. The ERIS AO system relies on a 40×40 sub-aperture Pyramid Wavefront Sensor (PWFS) for two operating modes: a pure Natural Guide Star high-order sensing for high Strehl and contrast correction and a low-order visible sensing in support of the Laser Guide Star AO mode. In this paper we present in detail the preliminary design of the ERIS PWFS that is developed under the responsibility of INAF-Osservatorio Astrofisico di Arcetri in collaboration with ESO.

The Australian National University and EOS Space Systems have teamed up to equip the EOS laser space debris tracking station on Mount Stromlo near Canberra, Australia, with sodium Laser Guide Star (LGS) Adaptive Optics (AO). The AO system is used to correct for laser beam degradation caused by the atmospheric turbulence on the upward infrared laser pulse used to illuminate space debris. As a result, the AO-equipped laser tracking station can track smaller and more distant debris. This paper presents the joint ANU/EOS AO Demonstrator LGS facility requirements, architecture, and performance at the time of the conference.

The brightness of a laser-generated guide star is determined not only by the power of the laser, but also by the spectral and temporal properties of the laser. We show that a guide star laser pulsed at the Larmor frequency of the sodium atoms enhances guide star brightness by up to 2X, compared to an optimized cw laser at the same average power. We describe a frequency-addition source of optical radiation that can provide such pulsed light, while providing any desired spectral shape.

ARGOS, a multi-star adaptive optics system is designed for the wide-field imager and multi-object spectrograph LUCI on the LBT (Large Binocular Telescope). Based on Rayleigh scattering the laser constellation images 3 artificial stars (at 532 nm) per each of the 2 eyes of the LBT, focused at a height of 12 km (Ground Layer Adaptive Optics). The stars are nominally positioned on a circle 2’ in radius, but each star can be moved by up to 0.5’ in any direction. For all of these needs are following main subsystems necessary: 1. A laser system with its 3 Lasers (Nd:YAG ~18W each) for delivering strong collimated light as for LGS indispensable. 2. The Launch system to project 3 beams per main mirror as a 40 cm telescope to the sky. 3. The Wave Front Sensor with a dichroic mirror. 4. The dichroic mirror unit to grab and interpret the data. 5. A Calibration Unit to adjust the system independently also during day time. 6. Racks + platforms for the WFS units. 7. Platforms and ladders for a secure access. This paper should mainly demonstrate how the ARGOS Laser System is configured and designed to support all other systems.

Multiple sodium laser beacons are a crucial development in multi-conjugate adaptive optics systems that offers wide-field diffraction limited adaptive optics correction to the astronomical community. This correction is strongly dependent on the laser beam power and quality, so a beam shaping concept is currently being developed to speed-up calibration and alignment of the laser before every run. A method previously reported, has now been implemented on a laboratory bench using MEMS deformable mirrors. Necessary calibration and characterization of the deformable mirrors are described and the results for experimental amplitude correction are presented.

The Beam Transfer Optics (BTO) is a sub-system of the Gemini Multi-Conjugate Adaptive Optics System (GeMS). The main purpose of the BTO is to relay the laser light from the laser service enclosure up to the Laser Launch Telescope (LLT), located behind the telescope secondary mirror, where the five laser beams are propagated to the sky. Other functionalities besides relaying the laser light from the laser to the LLT, is the laser polarization control, which is crucial to any AO related system. The polarization state of the laser output beam influences the photon return flux. It is proven that the backscattering efficiency is higher when exciting the sodium layer with a circular polarized beam than one with linear polarization. For this reason circular polarization of our five laser beams that exit the LLT is desired for any telescope position. The paper reviews the current status of the Gemini South Beam Transfer Optics polarization and its control scheme. It reports on the improvements already done on the polarization control and measurement data of the polarization state at different BTO sections. In addition we discuss further optimization and upgrade ideas of the system.

We report on the development of the laser system of ARGOS, the multiple laser guide star adaptive optics system for the Large Binocular Telescope (LBT). The system uses a total of six high powered, pulsed Nd:YAG lasers frequency-doubled to a wavelength of 532 nm to generate a set of three guide stars above each of the LBT telescopes. The position of each of the LGS constellations on sky as well as the relative position of the individual laser guide stars within this constellation is controlled by a set of steerable mirrors and a fast tip-tilt mirror within the laser system. The entire opto-mechanical system is housed in two hermetically sealed and thermally controlled enclosures on the SX and DX side of the LBT telescope. The laser beams are propagated through two refractive launch telescopes which focus the beams at an altitude of 12 km, creating a constellation of laser guide stars around a 4 arcminute diameter circle by means of Rayleigh scattering. In addition to the GLAO Rayleigh beacon system, ARGOS has also been designed for a possible future upgrade with a hybrid sodium laser - Rayleigh beacon combination, enabling diffraction limited operation. The ARGOS laser system was successfully installed at the LBT in April 2013. Extensive functional tests have been carried out and have verified the operation of the systems according to specifications. The alignment of the laser system with respect to the launch telescope was carried out during two more runs in June and October 2013, followed by the first propagation of laser light on sky in November 2013.

In 2013, a serial sky test has been held on 1.8 meter telescope in Yunnan observation site after 2011-2012 Laser guide star photon return test. In this test, the long-pulsed sodium laser and the launch telescope have been upgraded, a smaller and brighter beacon has been observed. During the test, a sodium column density lidar and atmospheric coherence length measurement equipment were working at the same time. The coupling efficiency test result with the sky test layout, data processing, sodium beacon spot size analysis, sodium profile data will be presented in this paper.

Wavefront (WF) sensing using Sodium (Na) Laser Guide Stars (LGS) is a key concern for the design of a number of first generation Extremely Large Telescope (ELT) Adaptive Optics (AO) modules. One of the main challenges is the mitigation of the effects induced by extreme LGS spot elongation on the WF measurements. Before the final design studies of the E-ELT instruments, a Na LGS WF sensing on-sky experiment at the E-ELT scale is mandatory to achieve the full validation of the proposed mitigation strategies and their performance. This experiment will provide unique spatial and temporal WF measurements on a true Na LGS, perturbed by the atmospheric turbulence and mesospheric variability. The fine comparative analysis of such data with synchronously acquired WF measurements on at least one natural guide star (NGS) will be fundamental to test a number of algorithms, configurations for spot sampling and truncation and WF reconstruction schemes including multi-LGS configurations. A global error budget for the whole experiment will be derived with time to feed into the numerical simulation and the design of subsequent E-ELT LGS-AO modules. The data produced will be made available to the E-ELT community. We propose to use CANARY, the Multi-Object AO demonstrator installed at the 4.2m WHT which is a modular AO platform, equipped with several NGS WF Sensor (WFS) and Rayleigh multi-LGS unit and WFS. The transportable 20W Sodium laser unit (WLGSU), developed at ESO, will be positioned at a varying distance from the WHT to provide off-axis launching (up to 40m), simulating the whole range of LGS spot elongations obtained on the E-ELT. In such a case, the WHT pupil will represent an off-axis sub-pupil of the main E-ELT pupil. In addition, this experiment will include a Na layer profiler and the capability for open and closed loop operations. The experiment is scheduled before the end of 2016.

It is possible to create custom laser guidestar (LGS) asterisms from a single beam by using a deformable mirror to pattern the phase of the outgoing laser guidestar beam. This avoids the need for multiple laser launch assemblies, and in principle would allow one to position the multiple LGS spots in any desired arrangement around the science target, as well as dynamically rotate the LGS pattern on-sky and control the distribution of intensity in each spot. Simulations and laboratory experiments indicate that a PTT111 and PTT489 IrisAO MEMS deformable mirror and a Hamamatsu X8267 spatial light modulator may have applications for creating small LGS asterisms for biological imaging with adaptive optics. For astronomy applications, the phase values required to produce the “3+1” laser guidestar asterism of Keck’s Next Generation AO system is also investigated.

The Four Laser Guide Star Facility (4LGSF) is part of the ESO Adaptive Optics Facility, in which one of the VLT telescopes, UT4, is transformed in an adaptive telescope-equipped with a deformable secondary mirror, two adaptive optics systems at the Nasmyth focii and four sodium laser guide star modular units. In this paper we present the design, the assembly and validation test performed so far in Europe on the first laser guide star unit.

Every observatory using LGS-AO routinely has the experience of the long time needed to bring and acquire the laser guide star in the wavefront sensor field of view. This is mostly due to the difficulty of creating LGS pointing models, because of the opto-mechanical flexures and hysteresis in the launch and receiver telescope structures. The launch telescopes are normally sitting on the mechanical structure of the larger receiver telescope. The LGS acquisition time is even longer in case of multiple LGS systems. In this framework the optimization of the LGS systems absolute pointing accuracy is relevant to boost the time efficiency of both science and technical observations. In this paper we show the rationale, the design and the feasibility tests of a LGS Pointing Camera (LPC), which has been conceived for the VLT Adaptive Optics Facility 4LGSF project. The LPC would assist in pointing the four LGS, while the VLT is doing the initial active optics cycles to adjust its own optics on a natural star target, after a preset. The LPC allows minimizing the needed accuracy for LGS pointing model calibrations, while allowing to reach sub-arcsec LGS absolute pointing accuracy. This considerably reduces the LGS acquisition time and observations operation overheads. The LPC is a smart CCD camera, fed by a 150mm diameter aperture of a Maksutov telescope, mounted on the top ring of the VLT UT4, running Linux and acting as server for the client 4LGSF. The smart camera is able to recognize within few seconds the sky field using astrometric software, determining the stars and the LGS absolute positions. Upon request it returns the offsets to give to the LGS, to position them at the required sky coordinates. As byproduct goal, once calibrated the LPC can calculate upon request for each LGS, its return flux, its fwhm and the uplink beam scattering levels.

The W. M. Keck Observatory (WMKO) applied for and received a determination of no-objection from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) for laser guide star adaptive optics (LGS-AO) operations using an automated aircraft protection system (APS) in late 2013. WMKO’s APS, named AIRSAFE, uses transponder based aircraft detection (TBAD) to replace human aircraft spotters. The FAA required WMKO to self-certify AIRSAFE compliance with SAE Aerospace Standard 6029A: “Performance Criteria for Laser Control Measures Used for Aviation Safety”^[1] (AS- 6029A). AS-6029A prescribes performance and administrative criteria for an APS; essentially, requiring AIRSAFE to adequately protect all types of aircraft, traveling at any speed, altitude, distance and direction reasonably expected in the operating environment. A description of the analysis that comprises this compliance evaluation is the main focus of this paper. Also discussed is the AIRSAFE compliance with AS-6029A administrative criteria that includes characterization of site specific air traffic, failure modes, limitations, operating procedures, preventative maintenance procedures, and periodic system test procedures.

Adaptive Optics (AO) based on artificial beacons is the key to achieve high resolution images from large ground-based telescopes. Long pulsed lasers are preferable to create sodium laser guide stars (LGS) as they allow for Rayleigh blanking. However, these lasers may increase the effective light intensity irradiated at the sodium layer, which may lead to transition saturation, and then decline the normalized return flux efficiency. The return flux might be boosted by optical repumping, which could make full use of the advantages of optical pumping without trapping the atoms to the F=1 ground state. In this paper, we study the optical repumping effect by using a small scale long pulsed sodium laser developed in Technical Institute of Physics and Chemistry (TIPC), Chinese Academy of Sciences, whose pulse format may be pretty suitable for large telescopes. An electro-optic phase modulator is used to produce 1.713 GHz sidebands from the D_2a center wavelength with the fraction of 20%. As for a vacuum sodium cell at the temperature of 40°C, when the effective laser intensity increases from 4.53×10² W/m² to 6.99×10⁵ W/ m², resonant fluorescence with and without repumping is measured. The result illustrates that the resonant scattering brightness with repumping can be as over 3 times as without it when the light intensity changes between 4.53×10² W/m² to 5 ×104 W/ m². The saturated phenomenon is also observed. This gives direct evidence that repumping could improve the performance of sodium laser guide stars based on TIPC long pulsed lasers. To our knowledge, this is the first experimental demonstration of the repumping effect with the TIPC type long pulsed laser in laboratory.

We present data collected using the camera PISCES coupled with the Firt Light Adaptive Optics (FLAO) mounted at the Large Binocular Telescope (LBT). The images were collected for two different pointings by using two natural guide stars with an apparent magnitude of R ~< 13 mag. During these observations the seeing was on average ~0.9 arcsec. The AO performed very well, in fact the images display a mean FWHM of 0.05 arcsec and of 0.06 arcsec in the J– and in the Ks–band, respectively. The Strehl ratio on the quoted images reaches 13–30% (J) and 50–65% (Ks), in the off and in the central pointings respectively. On the basis of this sample we have reached a J–band limiting magnitude of ~22.5 mag and the deepest Ks–band limiting magnitude ever obtained in a crowded stellar field: Ks ~23 mag. J–band images display a complex change in the shape of the PSF when moving at larger radial distances from the natural guide star. In particular, the stellar images become more elongated in approaching the corners of the J-band images whereas the Ks–band images are more uniform. We discuss in detail the strategy used to perform accurate and deep photometry in these very challenging images. In particular we will focus our attention on the use of an updated version of ROMAFOT based on asymmetric and analytical Point Spread Functions. The quality of the photometry allowed us to properly identify a feature that clearly shows up in NIR bands: the main sequence knee (MSK). The MSK is independent of the evolutionary age, therefore the difference in magnitude with the canonical clock to constrain the cluster age, the main sequence turn off (MSTO), provides an estimate of the absolute age of the cluster. The key advantage of this new approach is that the error decreases by a factor of two when compared with the classical one. Combining ground–based Ks with space F606W photometry, we estimate the absolute age of M15 to be 13.70± 0.80 Gyr.

Multi-conjugate adaptive optics can achieve diffraction limited images over a field of arcminutes and is a central technology for the future ELTs: Gemini/GeMS is the first facility-class LGS MCAO system to operate. With it we have taken images in J and Ks bands of the globular cluster NGC 1851 for which we also have HST/ACS observations in the visible. In this paper we present the deepest to date near-infrared photometry of NGC 1851 providing a wide colour baseline CMD that reaches the lower main sequence to have a new insight into the stellar populations of this globular cluster. The use of the GGCs' lower main sequence knee to determine its age is one of the science drivers for the observation of GGCs with MCAO given its visibility in the infrared and because it requires high Strehl ratios to measure the faint stars' photometry. In addition to the stellar population analysis, these data allow to examine the photometric performance of the instrument using a large number of point sources distributed across the field. We analyze the photometric performance of the instrument and the field dependence of the PSF, a central part on the prediction and improvement of the performance of future LGS MCAO systems like NFIRAOS for the Thirty Meter Telescope.

We present the first observations obtained with the L'-band AGPM vortex coronagraph recently installed on LBTI/LMIRCam. The AGPM (Annular Groove Phase Mask) is a vector vortex coronagraph made from diamond subwavelength gratings. It is designed to improve the sensitivity and dynamic range of high-resolution imaging at very small inner working angles, down to 0.09 arcseconds in the case of LBTI/LMIRCam in the L' band. During the first hours on sky, we observed the young A5V star HR8799 with the goal to demonstrate the AGPM performance and assess its relevance for the ongoing LBTI planet survey (LEECH). Preliminary analyses of the data reveal the four known planets clearly at high SNR and provide unprecedented sensitivity limits in the inner planetary system (down to the diffraction limit of 0.09 arcseconds).

Unimorph deformable mirrors are attractive in adaptive optics system due to their advantages of simplicity, compact, low cost and large stroke. In this paper, a double drive modes unimorph deformable mirror is presented, which comprises a 200 μm thick PZT layer and a 400 μm thick silicon layer. This deformable has 214 inner actuators in the 50-mm active aperture, which are for the aberration correction and a outer ring actuator for generating an overall defocus bias. An analytical model based on the theory of plates and shells is built to predict the behavior of the deformable mirror. The stroke of the deformable mirror is tested in the experiments. In order to test the performance for aberration correction, the deformable mirror is used to correct the aberration from its imperfect initial mirror surface in the close-loop manner. The root-mean-square value of the mirror surface after the close-loop correction for ten iterations is about λ/40, which indicates this deformable mirror has a good aberration correction performance. This DM has the potential to be used for astronomical adaptive optics.

Coronagraphic space telescopes require wavefront control systems for high-contrast imaging applications such as exoplanet direct imaging. High-actuator-count MEMS deformable mirrors (DM) are a key element of these wavefront control systems yet have not been flown in space long enough to characterize their on-orbit performance. The MEMS Deformable Mirror CubeSat Testbed is a conceptual nanosatellite demonstration of MEMS DM and wavefront sensing technology. The testbed platform is a 3U CubeSat bus. Of the 10 x 10 x 34.05 cm (3U) available volume, a 10 x 10 x 15 cm space is reserved for the optical payload. The main purpose of the payload is to characterize and calibrate the onorbit performance of a MEMS deformable mirror over an extended period of time (months). Its design incorporates both a Shack Hartmann wavefront sensor (internal laser illumination), and a focal plane sensor (used with an external aperture to image bright stars). We baseline a 32-actuator Boston Micromachines Mini deformable mirror for this mission, though the design is flexible and can be applied to mirrors from other vendors. We present the mission design and payload architecture and discuss experiment design, requirements, and performance simulations.

As any other modelling of a physical behavior, the numerical simulation of the mechanical response of an adaptive secondary mirror requires that the results match the experimental data. Such an agreement was recently demonstrated for the local mirror stiffness of the LBT and VLT Deformable Mirrors. A reliable modeling is a good tool for the extrapolation of the missing optical data (spider shadowing, edge vignetting, etc.) and a final goal method for simplifying, or even substituting, the complex optical measuring equipment required by the convex shells. In the present paper we compare the whole mirror deformation maps when a single actuator is poked, both in the optical data and in the numerical model. The limiting factors as well as a roadmap for future improvements will be identified.

A 3mm narrow interval deformable mirror (DM) with tip-tilt stage has been developed for astronomical instruments. Benefiting from its compact design, the adaptive optics system can be built with simple structure and smaller optical elements. First, a 37-elements prototype mirror has been developed for our 1.8-meter telescope, which interval space is 3mm, maximum tilt is ±10’, and maximum deformation is ±2μm. Based on this mirror, a simple adaptive optics system has been set up and its performance was tested in the laboratory especially the closed-loop correction ability. This adaptive optics subsystem is scheduled to be mounted at one folded Cassegrain focus of the 1.8-meter telescope this year, and comparison test for star compensation observation using this compact system and conventional adaptive optics system will also be carried out at the same time.

Thin, lightweight and low-cost deformable mirrors have been recently proposed, providing a pertinent device for wavefront error correction. We present different approaches to optimize actuator arrangement. The design is optimized according to a given correction requirement, through the number of electrodes, their shape and location. A first method focuses on the compensation of a given optical aberration (astigmatism). A second method directly optimizes the correction of a set of optical modes, taking into account the voltage limitation. We will describe the optimization techniques and give some examples of applications and design performance.

High order AO subsystems of the ELT require technological advancements in the Deformable Mirror (DM) construction and corresponding improvements in the drive electronics. Advanced prototyping is currently under way at NSI-Herzberg to reduce risks of deploying untried technology in the TMT AO subsystem NFIRAOS. We have developed a 96-channel output module and constructed a sub-scale DM Electronics prototype NDME384 with 384 output channels based on 4 such modules. French DM vendor Cilas has fabricated the NFIRAOS DM Breadoboard with 360 piezoelectric actuators in a 60×6 matrix, to demonstrate the DM technology to be deployed in NFIRAOS wavefront correctors. We present the results of testing our NDME384 prototype while driving the NFIRAOS DM Breadoboard.

The Deformable Secondary Mirror (DSM) for the VLT ended the stand-alone electro-mechanical and optical acceptance process, entering the test phase as part of the Adaptive Optics Facility (AOF) at the ESO Headquarter (Garching). The VLT-DSM currently represents the most advanced already-built large-format deformable mirror with its 1170 voice-coil actuators and its internal metrology based on co-located capacitive sensors to control the shape of the 1.12m-diameter 2mm-thick convex shell. The present paper reports the final results of the electro-mechanical and optical characterization of the DSM executed in a collaborative effort by the DSM manufacturing companies (Microgate s.r.l. and A.D.S. International s.r.l.), INAF-Osservatorio Astrofisico di Arcetri and ESO. The electro-mechanical acceptance tests have been performed in the company premises and their main purpose was the dynamical characterization of the internal control loop response and the calibration of the system data that are needed for its optimization. The optical acceptance tests have been performed at ESO (Garching) using the ASSIST optical test facility. The main purpose of the tests are the characterization of the optical shell flattening residuals, the corresponding calibration of flattening commands, the optical calibration of the capacitive sensors and the optical calibration of the mirror influence functions.

Direct imaging of exoplanet systems requires the use of coronagraphs to reach high contrast levels (10^-8 to 10^-11) at small angular separations (0.100). However, the performance of these devices is drastically limited by aberrations (in phase or in amplitude, introduced either by atmosphere or by the optics). Coronagraphs must therefore be combined with extreme adaptive optic systems, composed of a focal plane wavefront sensor and of a high order deformable mirror. These adaptive optic systems must reach a residual error in the corrected wavefront of less than 0.1 nm (RMS) with a rate of 1 kHz. In addition, the surface defects of the deformable mirror, inherent from the fabrication process, must be limited in order to avoid the introduction of amplitude aberrations. An experimental high contrast bench has been developed at the Paris Observatory (LESIA). This bench includes a Boston Micromachine deformable mirror composed of 1024 actuators. For a precise analysis of its surface and performance, we characterized this mirror on the interferometric bench developed since 2004 at the Marseille Observatory (LAM). In this paper, we present this interferometric bench as well as the results of the analysis. This will include a precise surface characterization and a description of the behavior of the actuators, on a 10 by 10 actuator range (behavior of a single actuator, study of the cross-talk between neighbor actuators, influence of a stuck actuator) and on full mirror scale (general surface shape).

SPHERE instrument [1] (Spectro-Polarimetry High-contrast Exoplanet Research) is a second generation ESO instrument dedicated to high contrast imaging, and exoplanet direct detection and characterisation. The overall performance of XAO system of SPHERE, as well as the optimal control law for turbulence correction, are presented in dedicated papers [5,6]. The global performance of the instrument and of all observing modes of SPHERE is done in [4]. The strategy of Wave-front Sensing [WFS] in SPHERE relies on two faces, and is thoroughly discussed in this paper. Firstly, extreme adaptive optics (XAO) is required for both turbulence and quasi-static pattern compensation. Particularly, the high frame rate and large subaperture numbers of the Shack-Hartmann WFS allows SAXO to optimally measure and compensate for atmospherical turbulence. Moreover, the spatial filtering [7,8] allows one to deepen the contrast curve, and is automatically adjusted on turbulence level to provide the best performance. Finally, a dedicated calibration procedure based on focal-plane wave-front sensing is optimized for NCPA compensation on the coronagraphic device, ensuring the best compensation of quasi-static speckle. Secondly, a high robustness to faint magnitude guide star allows SAXO to address a large panel of targets for exoplanet detection and characterization. This is only made possible by the joint use of a dedicated Wave- Front Sensing for turbulence, EMCCD detector capability, and adaptation of the system to the star magnitude. The noise propagation has been carefully monitored and optimized. The weighted center of gravity gives an optimal trade-off between performance with respect to noise, and complexity of implementation. The use of an EMCCD detector allows a powerful noise reduction on the wave-front sensor detector. And finaly, 5 SAXO observing modes are defined in order to cover all star magnitudes up to 16, with systematic optimal performance. During the whole assembly integrations and test period, choices have been done to optimise the trade-off between performance, robustness, and simplicity of use. The self-adaptation and auto-calibration of the instrument has been a strong investment, as well as developing a great simplicity of use. We describe here the actions taken to reach this level of operation for SPHERE. Finally, perspective are withdrawn for improving the strategy of WFS in the framework of future XAO instrumentations in E-ELT.

High throughput, low inner working angle (IWA) phase masks coronagraphs are essential to directly image and characterize (via spectroscopy) earth-like planets. However, the performance of low-IWA coronagraphs is limited by residual pointing errors and other low-order modes. The extent to which wavefront aberrations upstream of the coronagraph are corrected and calibrated drives coronagraphic performance. Addressing this issue is essential for preventing coronagraphic leaks, thus we have developed a Lyot-based low order wave front sensor (LLOWFS) to control the wavefront aberrations in a coronagraph. The LLOWFS monitors the starlight rejected by the coronagraphic mask using a reflective Lyot stop in the downstream pupil plane. The early implementation of LLOWFS at LESIA, Observatoire de Paris demonstrated an open loop measurement accuracy of 0.01 λ/D for tip-tilt at 638 nm when used in conjunction with a four quadrant phase mask (FQPM) in the laboratory. To further demonstrate our concept, we have installed the reflective Lyot stops on the Subaru Coronagraphic Extreme AO (SCExAO) system at the Subaru Telescope and modified the system to support small IWA phase mask coronagraphs (< 1λ/D) on-sky such as FQPM, eight octant phase mask, vector vortex coronagraph and the phase induced amplitude apodization complex phase mask coronagraph with a goal of obtaining milli arc-second pointing accuracy. Laboratory results have shown the measurement of tip, tilt, focus, oblique and right astigmatism at 1.55 μm for the vector vortex coronagraph. Our initial on-sky result demonstrate the closed loop accuracy of < 7 x 10-3 λ/D at 1.6 μm for tip, tilt and focus aberrations with the vector vortex coronagraph.

We describe the expected scientific capabilities of CHARIS, a high-contrast integral-field spectrograph (IFS) currently under construction for the Subaru telescope. CHARIS is part of a new generation of instruments, enabled by extreme adaptive optics (AO) systems (including SCExAO at Subaru), that promise greatly improved contrasts at small angular separation thanks to their ability to use spectral information to distinguish planets from quasistatic speckles in the stellar point-spread function (PSF). CHARIS is similar in concept to GPI and SPHERE, on Gemini South and the Very Large Telescope, respectively, but will be unique in its ability to simultaneously cover the entire near-infrared J, H, and K bands with a low-resolution mode. This extraordinarily broad wavelength coverage will enable spectral differential imaging down to angular separations of a few λ/D, corresponding to ~0".1. SCExAO will also offer contrast approaching 10-5 at similar separations, ~0".1–0".2. The discovery yield of a CHARIS survey will depend on the exoplanet distribution function at around 10 AU. If the distribution of planets discovered by radial velocity surveys extends unchanged to ~20 AU, observations of ~200 mostly young, nearby stars targeted by existing high-contrast instruments might find ~1–3 planets. Carefully optimizing the target sample could improve this yield by a factor of a few, while an upturn in frequency at a few AU could also increase the number of detections. CHARIS, with a higher spectral resolution mode of R ~ 75, will also be among the best instruments to characterize planets and brown dwarfs like HR 8799 cde and κ and b.

The New Adaptive Optics Module for Interferometry (NAOMI) is the future low order Adaptive optics system to be developed for and installed at the ESO 1.8 m Auxiliary Telescopes (ATs). The four ATs are designed for interferometry which they are essentially dedicated for. The project goal is to equip the telescopes with a low-order Shack-Hartmann system operating in the visible in place of the current tip-tilt correction. The deformable mirror (DM) for NAOMI is rotating with the AT azimuth axis whereas the wavefront sensor (WFS), which signals are used to control the DM, has a fixed position in the telescope basement. It is not co-rotating with the DM. The result is that the projection of the actuator pattern is rotating with respect to the WFS when the telescope is tracking an object on sky. In order to avoid the use of an optical de-rotator we developed an algorithm to de-rotate the commands to the DM in software. This paper outlines the concept of the software de-rotation as well as the performance obtained from end-to-end simulations.

We present wavefront reconstruction acceleration of high-order AO systems using an Intel Xeon Phi processor. The Xeon Phi is a coprocessor providing many integrated cores and designed for accelerating compute intensive, numerical codes. Unlike other accelerator technologies, it allows virtually unchanged C/C++ to be recompiled to run on the Xeon Phi, giving the potential of making development, upgrade and maintenance faster and less complex. We benchmark the Xeon Phi in the context of AO real-time control by running a matrix vector multiply (MVM) algorithm. We investigate variability in execution time and demonstrate a substantial speed-up in loop frequency. We examine the integration of a Xeon Phi into an existing RTC system and show that performance improvements can be achieved with limited development effort.

Model-based optimal control such as Linear Quadratic Gaussian (LQG) control has been attracting considerable attention for adaptive optics systems. The ability of LQG to handle the complex dynamics of deformable mirrors and its relatively simple implementation makes LQG attractive for large adaptive optics systems. However, LQG has its own share of drawbacks, such as suboptimal handling of constraints on actuators movements and possible numerical problems in case of fast sampling rate discretization of the corresponding matrices. Unlike LQG, the Receding Horizon Control (RHC) technique provides control signals for a deformable mirror that are optimal within the prescribed constraints. This is achieved by reformulating the control problem as an online optimization problem that is solved at each sampling instance. In the unconstrained case, RHC produces the same control signals as LQG. However, when the control signals reach the constraints of actuator’s allowable movement in a deformable mirror, RHC finds the control signals that are optimal within those constraints, rather than just clipping the unconstrained optimum as commonly done in LQG control. The article discusses the consequences of high-gain LQG control operation in the case when the constraints on the actuator’s movement are reached. It is shown that clipping / saturating the control signals is not only suboptimal, but may be hazardous for the surface of a deformable mirror. The results of numerical simulations indicate that high-gain LQG control can lead to abrupt changes and spikes in the control signal when saturation occurs. The article further discusses a possible link between high-gain LQG and the waffle mode in the closed-loop operation of astronomical adaptive optics systems. Performance evaluation of Receding Horizon Control in terms of atmospheric disturbance rejection and a comparison with Linear Quadratic Gaussian control are performed. The results of the numerical simulations suggest that the disturbance rejection performance in the unconstrained case is the same for LQG and RHC, while RHC clearly outperforms the saturated LQG control in terms of atmospheric turbulence rejection. More importantly, RHC can be used in high-gain mode, unlike LQG, providing better atmospheric disturbance rejection in the constrained case.

In this paper, modern subspace identification methods are applied to a Multi-conjugate Adaptive optics Demonstrator, MAD, developed at ESO. The identified multi-input multi-output systems mapping voltages into slopes can be obtained on data taken in open/closed loop on beacon and in both SCAO and GLAO configurations. The advantages of the proposed approach is twofold: on the one hand the experiment to collect the data takes only few minutes during day time, it can be done on beacon, and all the computational effort is moved off-line. On the other hand, subspace identification provides the mathematical model necessary to design modern model-based controllers (e.g. linear quadratic control).

DRAGON is a high order, wide field AO test-bench at Durham. A key feature of DRAGON is the ability to be operated at real-time rates, i.e. frame rates of up to 1kHz, with low latency to maintain AO performance. Here, we will present the real-time control architecture for DRAGON, which includes two deformable mirrors, eight wavefront sensors and thousands of Shack-Hartmann sub-apertures. A novel approach has been taken to allow access to the wavefront sensor pixel stream, reducing latency and peak computational load, and this technique can be implemented for other similar wavefront sensor cameras with no hardware costs. We report on experience with an ELT-suitable wavefront sensor camera. DRAGON will form the basis for investigations into hardware acceleration architectures for AO real-time control, and recent work on GPU and many-core systems (including the Xeon Phi) will be reported. Additionally, the modular structure of DRAGON, its remote control capabilities, distribution of AO telemetry data, and the software concepts and architecture will be reported. Techniques used in DRAGON for pixel processing, slope calculation and wavefront reconstruction will be presented. This will include methods to handle changes in CN2 profile and sodium layer profile, both of which can be modelled in DRAGON. DRAGON software simulation techniques linking hardware-in-the-loop computer models to the DRAGON real-time system and control software will also be discussed. This tool allows testing of the DRAGON system without requiring physical hardware and serves as a test-bed for ELT integration and verification techniques.

A proven technology for the shape control of large secondary deformable mirrors employs a magnetically levitated contactless solution and relies on voice-coil actuators co-located to capacitive position sensors. The present work focuses on the description of the latest upgrade of this technology, as applied to the Very Large Telescope Deformable Secondary Mirror, the largest continuous facesheet adaptive mirror ever manufactured. The controller is based on a completely decentralized high frequency feedback coupled to a lower frequency improved feedforward. The system enhancements and performances are verified through electromechanical tests.

In the context of next generation instrumentation for current telescope and future Extremely Large Telescopes (ELT), the requirements on the correction of the tip-tilt modes are stringent. In a strong turbulence situation and in the presence of structural vibration of the telescope, tip-tilt mirror saturation phenomena can occur, which can degrade the performance or even destabilize the feedback system that is denoted the windup" effects. In this paper we investigate a control strategy which aims to mitigate the undesirable windup" effects. The approach gives possibilities to ensure the performance of a relevant anti-windup" control strategy invoking the small gain theorem and using the H_∞ optimization framework. The proposed control method, based on H_∞ optimization, guarantees the stability and performance of the tip-tilt loop.

Deformable mirrors with very high order correction generally have smaller dynamic range of motion than what is required to correct seeing over large aperture telescopes. As a result, systems will need to have an architecture that employs two deformable mirrors in series, one for the low-order but large excursion parts of the wavefront and one for the finer and smaller excursion components. The closed-loop control challenge is to a) keep the overall system stable, b) avoid the two mirrors using control energy to cancel each others correction, c) resolve actuator saturations stably, d) assure that on average the mirrors are each correcting their assigned region of spatial frequency space. We present the control architecture and techniques for assuring that it is linear and stable according to the above criteria. We derived the analytic forms for stability and performance and show results from simulations and on-sky testing using the new ShaneAO system on the Lick 3-meter telescope.

As a part of the trade study for the Narrow Field Infrared Adaptive Optics System, the adaptive optics system for the Thirty Meter Telescope, we investigated the feasibility of performing real-time control computation using a Linux operating system and Intel Xeon E5 CPUs. We also investigated a Xeon Phi based architecture which allows higher levels of parallelism. This paper summarizes both the CPU based real-time controller architecture and the Xeon Phi based RTC. The Intel Xeon E5 CPU solution meets the requirements and performs the computation for one AO cycle in an average of 767 microseconds. The Xeon Phi solution did not meet the 1200 microsecond time requirement and also suffered from unpredictable execution times. More detailed benchmark results are reported for both architectures.

This paper discusses Kalman filter design to correct for atmospheric tip/tilt, tip/tilt anisoplanatism and focus disturbances in laser guide star multi-conjugate adaptive optics. Model identification, controller design and computation, command oversampling and disturbance rejection are discussed via time domain analysis and control performance evaluation. End-to-end high-fidelity sky-coverage simulations are presented by Wang and co-authors in a companion paper.

We present on-sky results obtained with Carmen, an artificial neural network tomographic reconstructor. It was tested during two nights in July 2013 on Canary, an AO demonstrator on the William Hershel Telescope. Carmen is trained during the day on the Canary calibration bench. This training regime ensures that Carmen is entirely flexible in terms of atmospheric turbulence profile, negating any need to re-optimise the reconstructor in changing atmospheric conditions. Carmen was run in short bursts, interlaced with an optimised Learn and Apply reconstructor. We found the performance of Carmen to be approximately 5% lower than that of Learn and Apply.

In this article we revisit a subject that has partly already been examined in previous studies: the behavior of tomographic reconstructors in adaptive optics systems, facing to an atmospheric profile (C²_n(h)) different from the one they've been optimized for. We develop a new approach for that. The current usual approach is to simulate the performance of the reconstructor when slightly varying the C²_n(h) profile around a nominal one, and show how far the deviation may go. This has the disadvantage that, as the parameter space for potential errors on the C²_n(h) profile is basically infinite, it is particularly uneasy to span. Our approach consists in deriving a sort of sensitivity function, that we call vertical error distribution (VED), from the knowledge of any tomographic reconstructor. This function can be computed even for non-tomographic reconstructors, ground-layers reconstructors, single-conjugate AO reconstructors, etc. In any case, it allows us to derive the error when applied to a particular C²_n(h) profile, have a direct, global visualization of the error variation with layer altitude, for any number at any altitude. This also allows us to understand what a given reconstructor is sensitive to, at what altitudes or altitude range, or explain why some GLAO reconstructors may perform better than optimized MMSE tomographic reconstructors if low-altitude layers pop up. We also discuss the case of ELTs and apply our approach to large scale reconstructors.

To understand the physical processes taking place in galaxy formation and evolution, the ability to obtain resolved spectroscopy and images across the objects is a must. Distant galaxies are marginally resolved in seeing-limited conditions and Adaptive Optics (AO) is required. Most of the current extra-galactic AO studies are however constrained by the number of targets available to AO correction (the so-called sky coverage), and the need for statistics, that requires observing many objects across the largest possible field. These constraints are now significantly reduced by the new Wide Field AO systems, like GeMS, the Gemini MCAO system. In this paper, we try to understand the impact of the AO-PSF on the galaxies' morphology analysis accuracy. For this, we use realistic simulated data in order to assess the morphological parameters, taking into account partial PSF knowledge. This allows us to define the critical parameters of the MCAO PSF affecting the analysis accuracy.

This paper is dedicated to a new PSF reconstruction method based on a maximum likelihood approach (ML) which uses as well the telemetry data of the AO system (see Exposito et al. (2013)¹). This approach allows a joint-estimation of the covariance matrix of the mirror modes of the residual phase, the noise variance and the Fried parameter r₀. In this method, an estimate of the covariance between the parallel residual phase and the orthogonal phase is required. We developed a recursive approach taking into account the temporal effect of the AO-loop, so that this covariance only depends on the r0, the wind speed and some of the parameters of the system (the gain of the loop, the interaction matrix and the command matrix). With this estimation, the high bandwidth hypothesis is no longer required to reconstruct the PSF with a good accuracy. We present the validation of the method and the results on numerical simulations (on a SCAO system) and show that our ML method allows an accurate estimation of the PSF in the case of a Shack-Hartmann (SH) wavefront sensor (WFS).

We describe a back-end Adaptive Optics system for the CHARA Array called Lab-AO intended to compensate for non-common path errors between the AO system at the telescopes and the final beam combining area some hundreds of meters away. The system is an on-axis, very small field of view, low order system that will work on star light if enough is present, or will make use of a blue light beacon sent from the telescope towards the laboratory if not enough star light is available. The first of six of these system has been installed and has recently been tested on the sky. Another five will be built for the remaining telescopes later this year.

We present in this paper an analysis of our preliminary results for point spread function reconstruction in laser guide star (LGS) mode for the Keck-II adaptive optics system. Our approach is based on an update of the natural guide star algorithm with the LGS terms. The first reconstruction we have done is based on a set of 13 LGS runs (telemetry data and sky PSF) for which we demonstrate already a significant correlation between the reconstructed and sky PSF metrics. At this point of the project, though, our reconstructed PSF does not reproduce the sky PSF features (and this is expected) : we discuss why, and describe the different issues we have to solve, and the different experiment we will do, in order to achieve a good reconstruction.

Here we describe a prototype Strehl and image quality performance estimator and its integration into Paranal operations, starting with UT4 and its suite of three infrared instruments: adaptive optics-fed imager/spectrograph NACO (temporarily out of operations) and integral field unit SINFONI, as well as wide-field imager HAWK-I. The real-time estimator processes the ambient conditions (seeing, coherence time, airmass, etc.) from the DIMM, and telescope Shack-Hartmann image analyzer to produce estimates of image quality and Strehl ratio every ~ 30 seconds. The estimate is using ad-hoc instrumental models, based in part on the PAOLA adaptive optics simulator. We discuss the current performance of the estimator vs real IQ and Strehl measurements, its impact on service mode efficiency, prospects for full deployment at other UTs, its use for the adaptive optics facility (AOF), and inclusion of the SLODAR-measured fine turbulence characteristics.

We first briefly present the last version of the Software Package AIRY, version 6.1, a CAOS-based tool which includes various deconvolution methods, accelerations, regularizations, super-resolution, boundary effects reduction, point-spread function extraction/extrapolation, stopping rules, and constraints in the case of iterative blind deconvolution (IBD). Then, we focus on a new formulation of our Strehl-constrained IBD, here quantitatively compared to the original formulation for simulated near-infrared data of an 8-m class telescope equipped with adaptive optics (AO), showing their equivalence. Next, we extend the application of the original method to the visible domain with simulated data of an AO-equipped 1.5-m telescope, testing also the robustness of the method with respect to the Strehl ratio estimation.

PSF reconstruction (PSF-R) for AO systems was pioneered by J.P. Veran in 1997 [1] and was successfully demonstrated at CFHT/PUEO. A recent example was presented in the case for the Keck telescope in 2012 [2]. Nevertheless, it has been a constant struggle since to implement these technique as observatory standard. APETy (A PSF Estimation Tool for Yorick) has been developed since 2009 and applied for PSF reconstruction for the Near Infrared Coronograph Imager (NICI) at the Gemini South Observatory based on a 85 element curvature AO system. Using on-sky wavefront sensor data, we estimate the seeing (r0) from deformable mirror commands and reconstruct diffraction limited images (52 mas resolution) with an accuracy of approximately 90% when compared to the science images. APETy is publically available via GitHub (https://github.com/dgratadour/APETy) and can be adapted to other systems. APETy development includes the PSF-R variation proposed by Gendron [3] which proved to be almost 4 times faster than the original approach.

When laser propagation through atmospheric turbulence, the effect of anisoplanatic error will affect the compensation results of adaptive optics system. Based on the wave optics propagation model, laser propagation through horizontal path atmospheric turbulence with AO compensating simulation system was established to study the anisoplanatic error in turbulence with diffraction effect. Propagation experiments through a 4-km horizontal path outside were conducted. The AO compensating effects in different isoplanatic angles were tested at different turbulence strength. Both simulation results and experimental data show that during the isoplanatic angle with influence of piston and tilt terms removing the AO system possess effective compensation results.

The use of tilted elements in fast convergent beams like a dichroic unit is always a delicate matter in optical design. In adaptive optics (AO) applications this issue proves itself to be more severe with respect to classical imaging or spectroscopy: this due to the fact that the laser is co-moving with the launch telescope system while the natural guide star is co-moving with the sky. Because of the GMT design, during AO operations this condition translates as that the laser guide star moves around the target while the natural guide star does not. In this context, we studied two options for a high-optical quality and an easy to-plug-in dichroic unit dividing lasers beacons (reflected) and natural stars (transmitted). Beyond their different optical performances and mechanical implementations, these options are able both to accomplish the main goal of simultaneous operation of natural and laser-oriented AO at the GMT. One of these two has successfully passed the GMT AO Preliminary Design Review (PDR) on July 2013.

The Giant Magellan Telescope (GMT) is one of the extremely large telescopes of the next generation. The GMT adaptive optics (AO) system uses an adaptive secondary mirror and natural and laser guide stars to achieve diffraction-limited images. The AO calibration source provides sources at the telescope prime focus which replicate the properties of the natural and laser guide stars, to calibrate and verify the performance of the AO system. We present an optical design for this calibration source, and discuss the expected accuracy based on the tolerance analysis.

A multi-conjugate adaptive optics (MCAO) system is being built for the world's largest aperture 1.6m solar telescope, New Solar Telescope, at the Big Bear Solar Observatory (BBSO). The BBSO MCAO system employs three deformable mirrors to enlarge the corrected field of view. In order to characterize the MCAO performance with different optical configurations and DM conjugated altitudes, the BBSO MCAO setup also needs to be flexible. In this paper, we present the optical design of the BBSO MCAO system.

An adaptive optics system running at 1500 Hz was integrated using commercially available components. The deformable mirror was made by Alpao and has 277 actuators on a 1:5mm pitch. The wavefront sensor is based on the OCAM2 EMCCD (Electron-multiplying charge-coupled device) camera from First Light Imaging and a 20×20 lenslet array. We present an initial system integration phase using the Alpao Core Engine toolbox running in a Matlab® environment. During the second integration phase, benchmark tests for Alpao's real-time controller ACEfast show the possibility to obtain a pure delay of τ = 130 µs in a parallel worker configuration with a computing power of 2 CPU/8 core + 4GPU for a problem size equivalent to state-of-the-art adaptive optics systems.

The pyramid wavefront sensor (PWFS) is generally considered a better alternative to the widely used Shack-Hartmann wavefront sensor (SHWFS), due to the theoretically higher sensibility and increased resistance to aliasing. These properties, which stem from the duality of the PWFS as a slope/phase sensor, are very desirable, since they can lead to increased performance and higher sky coverage in AO systems. We have tried to verify these properties experimentally by using a 32×32 MEMS deformable mirror to create Fourier modes, which were presented to a prototype PWFS.

A composite tracking sensor, in which a reflect mirror with a central hole is inserted in the imaging systems so that the reflective beam beyond the hole is directed to the large dynamic range detector and the beam passing the hole is reimaged by a lens to enter the high sensitivity detector, can be used for tip-tilt detecting with high accuracy and large dynamic range simultaneously. A composite tracking sensor prototype based on the multi-anode photo-multiplier tubes (MAPMT) is developed for 1.8 meter astronomical telescope in the Gaomeigu astronomical observation station. In this paper, the principle of the composite tracking sensor is introduced. The prototype is described in detailed and the experimental results are presented. The results show that this composite tracking sensor can reach the tracking accuracy of 0.2 μrad and higher within the dynamic range of 870 μrad.

Quadrant photodetector is one of the most popular detection devices for tip/tilt sensing. The measurement range and detection sensitivity, depending on the size of light spot incident on the quadrant photodetector, are theoretically analyzed and discussed in the application cases of the uniform irradiance distribution and of Gaussian irradiance distribution of the incident light spot. According to the theoretical results, the larger the size of the light spot is, the greater the measurement range of the quadrant photodetector, and the smaller the detection sensitivity of the quadrant photodetector.

We explore two methods of quantifying and correcting non-common path aberrations (NCPA) both in simulation and on an experimental bench. The first method, called Focal Plane Sharpening (FPS), utilizes an optimization algorithm to maximize the peak intensity of the PSF by varying actuator patterns on a deformable mirror (DM). The second method employs the technique of Phase Diversity (PD) to estimate NCPA by use of PSF images in and out of the focal plane. The experimental tests use a 52 actuator ALPAO DM and 1000 actuator MEMS DM to provide an offset for NCPA correction. Each method shows to be successful in simulation, however FPS is the only method used successfully on an experimental bench; although work is on-going to successfully demonstrate PD. Our aim is to use one or both methods to determine the best approach to NCPA calibration on the MOAO system RAVEN, and extend this calibration method to future systems such as TMT's NFIRAOS.

We introduce a new approach to wavefront phase reconstruction in Adaptive Optics using a non-linear approach derived from the Microcanonical Multiscale Formalism (MMF). MMF comes from established concepts in statistical physics, well-suited for the multiscale analysis of complex signals through the precise numerical estimate of geometrically localized singularity exponents. These exponents quantify the degree of predictability at each point of the signal domain, and provide information on the dynamics of the associated system. We show that multiresolution analysis on the singularity exponents of a high-resolution turbulent phase allows propagation along the scales of the phase gradients in low-resolution, to a higher resolution and offers an innovative approach to wavefront phase reconstruction in Adaptive Optics.

The limits for adaptive-optics-assisted and space-based astronomical imaging at high contrast and high resolution are typically determined by residual phase errors due to non-common-path aberrations not sensed by the wavefront sensor. These impose quasi-static speckles on the image, which are difficult to calibrate as they vary in time and with telescope orientation. Typical approaches require phase diversity of some sort,¹ which requires many iterations and is accordingly time-consuming. This is especially true of integral field spectrographs, where use of standard phase diversity based techniques is additionally complicated by the presence of the image slicer/integral field unit. We present the first application of the kernel phase based ‘asymmetric pupil Fourier wavefront sensing’ scheme to ground-based AO-corrected integral field spectroscopy, whereby an asymmetric pupil mask and a single image are sufficient to map aberrations up to high order, including non-common-path error. This method is closely connected with kernel phase interferometry, already applied to space-based and AO-assisted imaging, in which a phase transfer matrix formalism partitions focal plane Fourier phases into a kernel space which is self- calibrating with respect to pupil aberrations, and a row space which can be used to determine those aberrations via a matrix pseudo-inverse. This requires two key conditions be satisfied: the first, that phase errors are < 1 radian in magnitude. These conditions are typically satisfied for space-based telescopes such as the HST, or AO-corrected ground-based telescopes in the near-infrared. The second requirement is that the telescope pupil is not centro-symmetric; this can be achieved simply by placing an asymmetric mask in the optical path. The row phase reconstruction then provides a phase map which can be applied directly to a deformable mirror as a static offset. While in our approach we have iteratively applied corrections, we have deliberately damped correction steps, and in principle this can be done in a single step. We push toward internally diffraction-limited performance with the Oxford-SWIFT integral field spectrograph coupled with the PALM-3000 extreme AO system on the Palomar 200-inch telescope. This represents the first observation in which the PALM3000 + SWIFT internal point-spread-function has closely approached the Airy pattern. While this can only be used on SWIFT with an internal stimulus source, as at short wavelengths the uncorrected atmospheric wavefront errors are still < 1 radian, this nevertheless demonstrates the feasibility of detecting non-common-path errors with this method as an active optics paradigm for near-infrared, AO-corrected instruments on Palomar such as PHARO or Project 1640 (P1640), or other instruments such as VLT-SPHERE or the Gemini Planet Imager (GPI). We note that this is a particularly promising approach for correcting integral field spectrographs, as the diversity of many narrowband images provides strong constraints on the wavefront error estimate, and the average of reconstructions from many narrow bands can be used to improve overall reconstruction quality.

The GRAVITY acquisition camera has four 9x9 Shack-Hartmann sensors operating in the near-infrared. It measures the slow variations of a quasi-distorted wavefront of four telescope beams simultaneously, by imaging the Galactic Center field. The Shack-Hartmann lenslet images of the Galactic Center are generated. Since the lenslet array images are filled with the crowded Galactic Center stellar field, an extended object, the local shifts of the distorted wavefront have to be estimated with a correlation algorithm. In this paper we report on the accuracy of six existing centroid algorithms for the Galactic Center stellar field. We show the VLTI tunnel atmospheric turbulence phases are reconstructed back with a precision of 100 nm at 2 s integration.

Since the introduction of the pyramid wavefront sensor [P-WFS] concept (Ragazzoni), numerous investigations have clearly shown its ability to achieve better performance (sensitivity, dynamic range) than the standard Shack-Hartman [SH-WFS]. It has recently been successfully implemented on LBT and has already been provided very interesting results (Esposito et al). Then, most of the future adaptive optics [AO] systems, mainly for ELT instrumentation, will probably integrate one or several pyramidal sensors. However, the pyramid behavior still needs to be extensively studied in order to ensure its optimization in real conditions of operation. So, the coupling in an AO loop and the control of this type of sensor is fundamental for an efficient implementation in the future AO systems. At LAM, we recently carried out in labs demonstration of an extremely performant pyramid sensor (up to 60x60), using particularly an OCAM² detector (1.5 kHz, RON close to zero). Both modulated and fixed configurations are investigated and compared with numerical models. The P-WFS is being coupled with a dedicated RTC and a 12×12 DM to achieve a first AO closed loop operation. For modulation, a fine control is needed: a specific electronic module, interfaced with the RTC, is being developed to drive the TT mirror (OCAM² triggering). Then, various TT mirrors are under test to determine a suitable one. After tests of the pyramid specificities (optimiziation, calibration and operation procedures), the P-WFS will be tested on-sky and compared with an already existing SH-WFS (using the same OCAM²) on the ONERA bench.

We investigate methods to calibrate the non-common path aberrations at an adaptive optics system having a wavefront-correcting device working with an extremely high resolution (larger than 150x150 correcting elements). We use focal-plane images collected successively, the corresponding phase-diversity information and numerically efficient algorithms to calculate the required wavefront updates. Different approaches are considered in numerical simulations, and laboratory experiments are shown to confirm the results. We compare the performances of the standard Gerchberg-Saxton algorithm, Fast and Furious (use of small-phase assumption to take advantage of linearisation) and recently proposed phase-retrieval methods based on convex optimisation. The results indicate that the calibration task is easiest with algorithms similar to Fast and Furious, at least in the framework we considered.

A new technique is presented for measuring the phase map due to aberrations in the wavefront-sensor non-common path of an adaptive optics system, for the common architecture in which wavefront-sensor and science paths are split at a dichroic. The underlying technique was originally developed to give absolute surface metrology with laboratory phaseshifting interferometers, correcting in that case for the unknown phase corruption due to imperfections in a transmission flat that contains the reference surface. As applied to an adaptive optics system, the technique makes use of simple mechanical actuation, normally available for pupil alignment, to isolate errors up- and down-stream of the dichroic. With auxiliary phase-diversity data from the science path, flexure-induced phase errors within both non-common paths may be characterized, yielding information about the temporally persistent speckles they are thought to produce.

With the upcoming construction of Extremely Large Telescopes, several existing technologies are being pushed beyond their performance limit and it becomes essential to develop and evaluate new alternatives. The "Observatoire du Mont Mégantic" (OMM) hosts a telescope having a 1.6-meter diameter primary. The OMM telescope is known to be an excellent location to develop and test precursor instruments which are then upscaled to larger telescopes (ex. SPIOMM which led to SITELLE at the CFHT). We present a specifically designed focal plane box for the OMM which will allow to evaluate, directly on-sky, the performance of a number of next generation adaptive optics related technologies The system will able us to compare the performance of several new wavefront sensors in contrast with the current standard, the Shack-Hartman wavefront sensor.

We present the results of the laboratory characterization of the ARGOS LGS wavefront sensor (LGSW) and dichroic units. ARGOS is the laser guide star adaptive optics system of the Large Binocular Telescope (LBT). It implements a Ground Layer Adaptive Optics (GLAO) correction for LUCI, an infrared imager and multi-object spectrograph (MOS), using 3 pulsed Rayleigh beacons focused at 12km altitude. The LGSW is a Shack-Hartman sensor having 15 × 15 subaspertures over the telescope pupil. Each LGS is independently stabilized for on-sky jitter and gated to reduce spot elongation. The 3 LGS pupils are stabilized to compensate mechanical flexure and are arranged on a single detector. Two units of LGSW have been produced and tested at Arcetri Observatory. We report on the results obtained in the pre-shipment laboratory test: internal active flexure compensation loop performance, optomechanical stability under different gravity conditions, thermal cycling, Pockels cells performance. We also update on the upcoming installation and commissioning campaign at LBT.

The exoplanet direct imagers Gemini/GPI and VLT/SPHERE are built around extreme adaptive optics (ExAO) to correct the atmospheric turbulence and the aberrations associated with the optical surfaces. However, additional strategies are necessary to correct the non-common path aberrations (NCPA) between the ExAO and science paths that can limit the instrument contrast performance. To perform an adequate calibration, we have developed ZELDA, a Zernike sensor to achieve NCPA measurements with nanometric accuracy. We report the results of a new design analysis that maximizes the dynamic range, and from laboratory demonstrations on the LAM high-contrast testbed and on VLT/SPHERE during its integration.

In theory, low order static wavefront aberrations should be easily measured and corrected by an Adaptive Optics (AO) system. In practice, there appear to be low order residual quasi-static aberrations in the natural and laser guide star AO corrected images taken with the NIRC2 science imager at the W. M. Keck Observatory. The evidence for these residuals comes mainly from the AO corrected images themselves, which at times include low order structure such as trefoil and astigmatism. Why are these wavefront errors apparently not seen by the wavefront sensor (WFS) and what can be done to correct or characterize them? Several hypotheses exist on the origin of the residuals, including WFS gain errors, structures in the telescope pupil, or variability and frequency of AO system calibration for non-common path aberrations. These hypotheses are discussed, as are experiments that test them. Mitigation strategies are also presented and evaluated in terms of their ability to improve the AO-corrected point spread function (PSF), or characterize the PSF for PSF-reconstruction purposes, while having minimal impact on observing operations.

Curvature wavefront sensors obtain the wave-front aberrations from two defocused intensity images at each side of the pupil plane. Typically, when high modulation speeds are required, as it is the case with Adaptive Optics, that defocusing is done with a fast vibrating membrane mirror. We propose an alternative defocusing mechanism based on an electrowetting variable focus liquid lens. The use of such lenses may perform the required focus modulation without the need of extra moving parts, reducing the overall size of the system.

Raven is a multi-object adaptive optics (MOAO) demonstrator that will be mounted on the NIR Nasmyth platform of the Subaru telescope in May, 2014. Raven can use three open-loop NGS WFSs and an on-axis LGS WFS to control DMs in two separate science pick-off arms. Centroiding in open loop AO systems like Raven is more difficult than in closed loop AO systems because the Shack-Hartmann spots will not be driven to the same spot on a detector. Rather the spots can fall on any combination of pixels because the WFSs need to have sufficient dynamic range to measure the full turbulence. In this paper, we compare correlation and thresholded center of gravity (tCOG) centroiding methods in simulation, with Raven using its calibration unit, and on-sky. Each method has its own advantages. Correlation centroiding is superior to tCOG centroiding for faint NGSs and for extended sources (Raven open loop WFSs do not contain ADCs so spots will become elongated). We expect that correlation centroiding will push the limiting magnitude of Raven NGSs fainter by roughly one magnitude. Correlation centroiding is computationally more intensive, however, and actually will limit Raven’s sampling rate for shorter integrations. Therefore, for bright stars with sufficiently high signal-to-noise, Raven can be run significantly faster and with superior performance using the tCOG method. Here we quantify both the performance and timing differences of these two centroiding methods in simulation, in the lab and on sky using Raven.

The Gemini Planet Imager (GPI) is a new facility, extreme adaptive optics (AO), coronagraphic instrument, currently being integrated onto the 8-meter Gemini South telescope, with the ultimate goal of directly imaging extrasolar planets. To achieve the contrast required for the desired science, it is necessary to quantify and mitigate wavefront error (WFE). A large source of potential static WFE arises from the primary AO wavefront sensor (WFS) detector's use of multiple readout segments with independent signal chains including on-chip preamplifiers and external amplifiers. Temperature changes within GPI's electronics cause drifts in readout segments' bias levels, inducing an RMS WFE of 1.1 nm and 41.9 nm over 4.44 degrees Celsius, for magnitude 4 and 11 stars, respectively. With a goal of <2 nm of static WFE, these are significant enough to require remedial action. Simulations imply a requirement to take fresh WFS darks every 2 degrees Celsius of temperature change, for a magnitude 6 star; similarly, for a magnitude 7 star, every 1 degree Celsius of temperature change. For sufficiently dim stars, bias drifts exceed the signal, causing a large initial WFE, and the former periodic requirement practically becomes an instantaneous/continuous one, making the goal of <2 nm of static WFE very difficult for stars of magnitude 9 or fainter. In extreme cases, this can cause the AO loops to destabilize due to perceived nonphysical wavefronts, as some of the WFS's Shack-Hartmann quadcells are split between multiple readout segments. Presented here is GPI's AO WFS geometry, along with detailed steps in the simulation used to quantify bias drift related WFE, followed by laboratory and on sky results, and concluded with possible methods of remediation.

LINC-NIRVANA is the near-infrared interferometric imaging camera for the Large Binocular Telescope. Once operational, it will provide an unprecedented combination of angular resolution, sensitivity, and field of view. Its pyramid-based layer-oriented MCAO systems are conjugated to the ground layer and to an additional layer in the upper atmosphere. The Groundlayer Wavefront Sensor optically coadds the light of up to 12 reference stars in the pupil, the Highlayer Wavefront Sensor optically combines the light of up to 8 reference stars in its metapupil. Each Wavefront Sensor has its own associated field derotator. It introduces a dependency of the sensor-actuator relation on the angle of the field derotator, which requires regular updates of the reconstructor in closed loop. In addition, the Highlayer Wavefront Sensor has to be able to reconstruct the incoming wavefronts by analyzing an only partially illuminated metapupil. The distribution of illuminated subapertures depends on the distribution of reference stars. For each pointing, a specific reconstruction matrix has to be generated, which only considers the illuminated subapertures. In this contribution we will present the concept of LINC-NIRVANA's wavefront reconstruction mechanism and report on laboratory and on-sky tests.

The phase distribution of light field at a certain location can be calculated from two close intensities in first-order optical system along the propagation direction, and can be considered as the wavelet transform coefficient of the pupil light field. According to such theory, a new phase retrieval algorithm based on several intensities of different layers is presented in this paper, which can quickly calculate the phase with low frequency, and then gradually increase the resolution by adding more intensity to calculate.

We report on two recently developed charge-coupled devices (CCDs) for adaptive optics wavefront sensing, both designed to provide exceptional sensitivity (low noise and high quantum efficiency) in high-frame-rate low-latency readout applications. The first imager, the CCID75, is a back-illuminated 16-port 160×160-pixel CCD that has been demonstrated to operate at frame rates above 1,300 fps with noise of < 3 e-. We will describe the architecture of this CCD that enables this level of performance, present and discuss characterization data, and review additional design features that enable unique operating modes for adaptive optics wavefront sensing. We will also present an architectural overview and initial characterization data of a recently designed variation on the CCID75 architecture, the CCID82, which incorporates an electronic shutter to support adaptive optics using Rayleigh beacons.

Discretized Aperture Mapping (DAM) appears as an original filtering technique easy to play with existing adaptive optics (AO) systems. In its essential DAM operates as an optical passive filter removing part of the phase residuals in the wavefront without introducing any difficult-to-align component in the Fourier conjugate of the entrance pupil plane. DAM reveals as a new interferometric technique combined with spatial filtering allowing direct imaging over a narrow field of view (FOV). In fact, the entrance pupil of a single telescope is divided into many sub-pupils so that the residual phase in each sub-pupil is filtered up to the DAM cut-off frequency. DAM enables to smooth the small scale wavefront defects which correspond to high spatial frequencies in the pupil plane and to low angular frequencies in the image plane. Close to the AO Nyquist frequency, such pupil plane spatial frequencies are not well measured by the wavefront sensor (WFS) due to aliasing. Once bigger than the AO Nyquist frequency, they are no more measured by the WFS due to the fitting limit responsible for the narrow AO FOV. The corresponding image plane angular frequencies are not transmitted by DAM and are useless to image small FOVs, as stated by interferometry. That is why AO and DAM are complementary assuming that the DAM cut-off frequency is equal to the AO Nyquist frequency. Here we describe the imaging capabilities when DAM is placed downstream an AO system, over a convenient pupil which precedes the scientific detector. We show firstly that the imaging properties are preserved on a narrow FOV allowing direct imaging throughout interferometry. Then we show how the residual pupil plane spatial frequencies bigger than the AO Nyquist one are filtered out, as well as the residual halo in the image is dimmed.

The Gemini Planet Imager (GPI) entered on-sky commissioning phase, and had its First Light at the Gemini South telescope in November 2013. Meanwhile, the fast loops for atmospheric correction of the Extreme Adaptive Optics (XAO) system have been closed on many dozen stars at different magnitudes (I=4-8), elevation angles and a variety of seeing conditions, and a stable loop performance was achieved from the beginning. Ultimate contrast performance requires a very low residual wavefront error (design goal 60 nm RMS), and optimization of the planet finding instrument on different ends has just begun to deepen and widen its dark hole region. Laboratory raw contrast benchmarks are in the order of 10^-6 or smaller. In the telescope environment and in standard operations new challenges are faced (changing gravity, temperature, vibrations) that are tackled by a variety of techniques such as Kalman filtering, open-loop models to keep alignment to within 5 mas, speckle nulling, and a calibration unit (CAL). The CAL unit was especially designed by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory to control slowly varying wavefront errors at the focal plane of the apodized Lyot coronagraph by the means of two wavefront sensors: 1) a 7x7 low order Shack-Hartmann SH wavefront sensor (LOWFS), and 2) a special Mach-Zehnder interferometer for mid-order spatial frequencies (HOWFS) - atypical in that the beam is split in the focal plane via a pinhole but recombined in the pupil plane with a beamsplitter. The original design goal aimed for sensing and correcting on a level of a few nm which is extremely challenging in a telescope environment. This paper focuses on non-common path low order wavefront correction as achieved through the CAL unit on sky. We will present the obtained results as well as explain challenges that we are facing.

We present progress on our holographic adaptive laser optics system (HALOS): a compact, closed-loop aberration correction system that uses a multiplexed hologram to deconvolve the phase aberrations in an input beam. The wavefront characterization is based on simple, parallel measurements of the intensity of fixed focal spots and does not require any complex calculations. As such, the system does not require a computer and is thus much cheaper, less complex than conventional approaches. We present details of a fully functional, closed-loop prototype incorporating a 32-element MEMS mirror, operating at a bandwidth of over 10kHz. Additionally, since the all-optical sensing is made in parallel, the speed is independent of actuator number - running at the same bandwidth for one actuator as for a million.

The Advanced Instrumentation and Technology Center at the Australian National University is building a Laser Tomography Adaptive Optics Test Bed for Extremely Large Telescopes. The optical test bench is using three Laser Guide Stars (LGS) propagating through three phase screens. The LGS wavefronts are sampled with a 16 × 16 Shack-Hartmann wavefront sensor (SH-WFS). Cone effect, spot elongation and Sodium layer density fluctuations are reproduced on the bench. Two Natural Guide Stars (NGS), on-axis and off-axis, are also added to the bench. The wavefront of the on-axis NGS is corrected with a DM located in the optical path of both the LGSs and the on-axis NGS. The DM commands are derived from the tomographic estimate of the on-axis NGS wavefront using the measurements of the 3 LGS WFSs. The off-axis NGS wavefront is sampled with a 6 × 6 SH-WFS and is emulating tip-tilt, focus and truth sensing. A DM located in front of the off-axis NGS WFS is correcting the off-axis NGS wavefront. The commands of this DM are also derived from the tomographic reconstructor. In the paper, the design of the LTAO test bed is presented.

DRAGON is a real-time, tomographic Adaptive Optics test bench currently under development at Durham University. Optical and mechanical design work for DRAGON is now complete, and the system is close to becoming fully operational. DRAGON emulates current 4.2 m and 8 m telescopes, and can also be used to investigate ELT scale issues. The full system features 4 Laser Guide Star (LGS) Wavefront Sensors (WFS), 3 Natural Guide Star (NGS) WFSs and one Truth Sensor, all of which are 31 × 31 sub-aperture Shack-Hartmann WFS. Two Deformable Mirrors (DMs), a Boston MEMS Kilo DM and a Xinetics 97 actuator DM, correct for turbulence induced aberrations and these can be configured to be either open or closed loop of the WFS. A novel method of LGS emulation is implemented which includes the effects of uplink turbulence and elongation in real-time. The atmosphere is emulated by 4 rotating phase screens which can be translated in real-time to replicate altitude evolution of turbulent layers. DRAGON will be used to extensively study tomographic AO algorithms, such as those required for Multi-Object AO. As DRAGON has been designed to be compatible with CANARY, the MOAO demonstrator, results can be compared to those from the CANARY MOAO demonstrator on the 4.2m William Herschel Telescope. We present here an overview of the current status of DRAGON and some early results, including investigations into the validity of the LGS emulation method.

The Canary Hosted-Upgrade for High-Order Adaptive Optics, or CHOUGH, is an upgrade for the Canary Tomographic AO experiment. It aims to enable a high-order 30×30, single-conjugate AO capability on a 4m telescope. It utilizes a Shack-Hartmann WFS with a spatial filter for measurements together with a MEMS-DM and a magnetically actuated DM in tandem to provide the correction (dual-DM architecture). For analysis of the residuals from the correction, there are two separate instruments: a conventional imager operating in the visible part of the spectrum (V- to I-band), and an interferometer that directly measures the phase. At present the system is in the design stage and this paper reports progress towards developing a system that is capable of delivering the goals on-sky.

CRAO is a demonstrator of a compact and low-cost adaptive-optics (AO) with a double-pass lens configuration. Owing to its compact optical layout compared to conventional reflective AOs, the instrument size can be reduced to only 0.03 square meters. We plan to apply this miniaturization technique into future AOs on a variety of telescopes ranging from 1m- to 30m-class. CRAO is installed at a Nasmyth focus of the 1.3m Araki telescope at Koyama Astronomical Observatory in Kyoto Sangyo University. CRAO adopts a closed-loop single-conjugate system with wavelength coverage of 400 - 700 nm and the field of view of 30 arcsec. For low cost, we also employ commercial products on its wavefront sensor (WFS), deformable mirror (DM), and tip-tilt (TT) stage. CRAO is designed to improve the atmospheric seeing from 2.5 to 0.6arcsec under a typical condition at Koyama Astronomical Observatory with 12x12 subapertures in the WFS, 48 electrodes in the membrane DM and the control bandwidth of 200Hz. In order to examine key issues inherent in refractive optical system such as chromatic aberration, temperature aberration and ghost images, room and on-sky experiments are currently underway. CRAO has seen first light in May 2014, and we have confirmed that effects of chromatic aberration and ghost images induced by its refractive optics are negligible for at least TT correction. In this paper, we present experimental results as well as the design of optics, opto-mechanics and control system.

Wavefront sensing is one of the key elements of an Adaptive Optics System. Although Shack-Hartmann WFS are the most commonly used whether for astronomical or biomedical applications, the high-sensitivity and large dynamic-range of the Pyramid-WFS (P-WFS) technology is promising and needs to be further investigated for proper justification in future Extremely Large Telescopes (ELT) applications. At INO, center for applied research in optics and technology transfer in Quebec City, Canada, we have recently set to develop a Pyramid wavefront sensor (P-WFS), an option for which no other research group in Canada had any experience. A first version had been built and tested in 2013 in collaboration with NRC-HIA Victoria. Here we present a second iteration of demonstrator with an extended spectral range, fast modulation capability and low-noise, fast-acquisition EMCCD sensor. The system has been designed with compactness and robustness in mind to allow on-sky testing at Mont Mégantic facility, in parallel with a Shack- Hartmann sensor so as to compare both options.

At NRC Herzberg - Astronomy we are developing a closed-loop multi-conjugate adaptive optics bench to simulate a scaled-down version of NFIRAOS, the first light MCAO system on the Thirty Meter Telescope. The current bench consists of four laser guide stars, an evenly spaced array of natural guide stars, two magnetic deformable mirrors, a Shack-Hartmann wavefront sensor and a science camera at the focal plane for the evaluation of the performance and the tip-tilt measurements. Three phase screens conjugated at different altitudes simulate the atmospheric perturbation over the telescope. We can recreate the spot elongation on the SHWFS by defocusing the ground DM and at the same time modulating the intensity of the LGS spots in order to simulate the timevarying density profile of the sodium layer. The goals of this experiment are to compare the experimental performance on the bench with the predicted results of NFIRAOS models and to test the robustness of the tomographic reconstruction under conditions including the use of faint guide stars, non-uniform density profiles of the sodium layer and known non-common path aberrations. In this paper we present an update on the status of the bench and some first results.

I compare recent site surveys for the future large 4-meter solar and 30-meter nighttime telescopes at the nearby Haleakala and Mauna Kea sites respectively. They show that the outstanding early morning image quality at the solar site corresponds indeed to that observed at the late night one at the nighttime site. That confirms the notion that daytime solar site heating only shows itself later in the morning. The nighttime survey includes observations of the refractive index structure function C_n ²(h) to high altitudes from which the radius of the isoplanatic patch (Ɵ₀) can be determined. At zenith (ζ = 0⁰) it equals 2.5 arcsec at 500 nm wavelength. For the early morning (best) seeing at the solar site, which occurs at ζ_sun = 75⁰ and the cos^1.6(ζ) dependence of Θ₀,that means an extremely small Ɵ₀ (0.26 arcsec). Such small values compromise Adaptive Optics (AO) solar correlation wavefront sensing for which areas are needed equal to about 8”× 8” I suggest options for measuring C_n²(h), and therefore Ɵ₀, during the day. These make use of the solar image as well as of daytime images of bright stars and planets. Some use the MASS technique on stars; some use the SHABAR technique using very large detector baselines on the Sun and shorter baselines on planets. It is suggested that these C_n²(h) measurements are made also during regular solar observations. In that way optimal solar observations can be planned using real-time Ɵ₀ observations by image selection and optimization of the MCAO configuration.

The performance of a ground based telescope can depend greatly on the coherence time, a site and time varying parameter determining the required reaction bandwidth of an Adaptive Optics system. Recently, Fast Defocus (FADE), a method which measures the coherence time from defocus fluctuations in a small telescope introduced by atmospheric turbulence has been presented. In this work, FADE was implemented for the Nasmyth Adaptive Optics System (NAOS) of the VLT's UT4 to demonstrate suitability for large scale telescopes. Estimates of the coherence time for an examplary set of AO loop data were compared to results obtained with the DIMM and MASS instruments, showing good agreement which justify a future in depth analysis for large AO loop data samples provided by NAOS as well as the VLT's Spectro-Polarimetric High-contrast Exoplanet Research (SPHERE) instrument.

Ground-based telescope imaging model is developed in this paper, the relationship between the atmospheric disturbances and the ground-based telescope image quality is studied. Simulation of the wave-front distortions caused by atmospheric turbulences has long been an important method in the study of the propagation of light through the atmosphere. The phase of the starlight wave-front is changed over time, but in an appropriate short exposure time, the atmospheric disturbances can be considered as “frozen”. In accordance with Kolmogorov turbulence theory, simulating atmospheric disturbances of image model based on the phase screen distorted by atmospheric turbulences is achieved by the fast Fourier transform (FFT). Geiger mode avalanche photodiode array (APD arrays) model is used for atmospheric wave-front detection, the image is achieved by inversion method of photon counting after the target starlight goes through phase screens and ground-based telescopes. Ground-based telescope imaging model is established in this paper can accurately achieve the relationship between the quality of telescope imaging and monolayer or multilayer atmosphere disturbances, and it is great significance for the wave-front detection and optical correction in a Multi-conjugate Adaptive Optics system (MCAO).

The advent of a new generation of Adaptive Optics systems called Wide Field AO (WFAO) mark the beginning of a new era. By using multiple Guide Stars (GSs), either Laser Guide Stars (LGSs) or Natural Guide Stars (NGSs), WFAO significantly increases the field of view of the AO-corrected images, and the fraction of the sky that can benefit from such correction. Different typologies of WFAO have been studied over the past years. They all require multiple GSs to perform a tomographic analysis of the atmospheric turbulence. One of the fundamental aspects of the new WFAO systems is the knowledge of the spatio-temporal distribution of the turbulence above the telescope. One way to get to this information is to use the telemetry data provided by the WFAO system itself. Indeed, it has been demonstrated that WFAO systems allows one to derive the C2 N and wind profile in the main turbulence layers (see e.g. Cortes et al. 20121). This method has the evident advantage to provide information on the turbulence stratification that effectively affects the AO system, property more difficultly respected by independently vertical profilers. In this paper, we compare the wind speeds profiles of GeMS with those predicted by a non-hydrostatical mesoscale atmospherical model (Meso-NH). It has been proved (Masciadri et al., 20132), indeed, that this model is able to provide reliable wind speed profiles on the whole troposphere and stratosphere (up to 20-25 km) above top-level astronomical sites. Correlation with measurements revealed to be very satisfactory when the model performances are analyzed from a statistical point of view as well on individual nights. Such a system appears therefore as an interesting reference to be used to quantify the GeMS wind speed profiles reliability.

The Adaptive Optics Facility (AOF) is a project that aims to transform the VLT UT4 into an adaptive telescope and therefore to provide all its science instruments with turbulence corrected wavefronts. When used in its wide-field modes, the AOF will allow to get a real time estimate of the turbulence distribution in the atmosphere, allowing an optimization of the system correction. The so-called Wind Profiler (or Fourier Deconvolution) algorithm has been adapted to the AOF configuration and validated through extensive tests. We show how it behaves under different modes and under typical Paranal seeing conditions.

This study is done in the framework of the MOSE (MOdeling ESO Sites) project, and focused above the two ESO ground-bases sites of Cerro Paranal and Cerro Armazones. In a precedent study we have already treated the model performances obtained in reconstructing some key atmospherical parameters in the surface layer 0-30 m studying the bias and the RMSE of a statistical sample of 20 nights. These statistical operators provide fundamental information on statistical and systematic errors of the model but they are not exhaustive. In this paper, with the help of contingency tables, we investigate the ability of the Meso-NH model in reconstructing some specific atmospherical parameters near the surface (absolute temperature and wind speed) providing complementary key informations. For this we analyzed 20 nights for which observations were available at both sites, in 2007.

The knowledge of the atmospheric turbulence profile directly above the telescope using the telemetry from wide-field Adaptive Optics (AO) measurements can be extremely useful for the optimization of the correction in the new generation of AO systems. For this purpose, two techniques have been recently implemented at the Gemini South MCAO System (GeMS); both based on the SLODAR method. The first technique uses a matrix inversion approach of the slopes covariance matrices and the second deconvolves the cross-correlation functions between all combinations of slopes using the auto-correlation responses. The deconvolution approach has proved to be more reliable that the one based on matrices inversion, so we use it for estimating the profiles from on-sky telemetry gathered over three years (2012 - 2014), obtaining statistical parameters of the turbulence at Cerro Pachón. These results are summarized in this article. Particular attention is paid to the occurrence of turbulence in the dome of the Gemini South telescope.

We present high resolution optical turbulence profiles of the dome and ground-layers measured using a set of Shack- Hartmann wavefront sensors deployed over a field of view of between 0.5 and 1.0 degrees at the focal planes of the University of Hawaii 2.2-m telescope and the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope on Maunakea, Hawaii. Observations with the experiment were made over the course of several nights on each telescope. We obtain estimates of the strength, distribution, and velocities of optical turbulence from the covariance matrices and maps of the measured wavefront gradients and a decomposition of the measured wavefronts into Zernike polynomials. We find agreement with previous measurements on Maunakea that the ground layer is largely confined within the first tens of meters above the ground and moves at the ground wind velocity. In addition, we spatially resolve the optical turbulence that arises from within the dome. For both facilities we find that the dome seeing is a major component of the overall turbulence strength accounting for more than half of the turbulence within the ground layer and that the dome seeing changes very slowly with a characteristic frequency of less than 1 Hz. While the variety of observing conditions sampled is low, we find that the characteristics of the dome seeing with observation elevation angle and the azimuth angle with respect to the ground wind are quite different on the two telescopes suggesting a different origin to the seeing within the two enclosures.

The Laser Guide Star Facility (LGSF) system of the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT) will generate the artificial laser guide stars required by the TMT Adaptive Optics (AO) systems. The LGSF uses multiple sodium lasers to generate and project several asterisms from a laser launch telescope located behind the TMT secondary mirror. The laser beams are transported from a location below the primary mirror to the launch telescope using conventional optics to relay the beams along the telescope structure. The beams and relay optics are enclosed into hermetic ducts for safety reasons and to protect the optics against the environment. A Computational Solid Fluid Dynamics (CSFD) model of the LGSF ducts has been developed. It resolves the duct thickness, laser beam transfer lenses, mirrors and their framework for most of the laser beam path that is subject to significant temperature gradients and/or large vertical change. It also resolves the air inside the duct and its thermal interaction with the aforementioned components through conjugate heat transfer. The thermal interaction of the laser beam with the optics is also captured. The model provides guidance to the LGSF design team and a first estimate of the laser beam stability performance and requirement compliance. As the telescope structure design has evolved in the recent years, a new optical path has been proposed for the LGSF. Both the original and the new optical paths are compared against optical, mechanical and other telescope performance related criteria. The optical performance criteria include a first order analysis of the optical turbulence generated within the ducts. In this study simulations of the thermal environment within the ducts of the two candidate paths are performed and conclusions are drawn.

The design of adaptive optics systems is driven by the local characteristics of the atmospheric turbulence. Site characterization campaigns utilizing a variety of atmospheric monitoring equipment provides a statistical description of parameters such integrated seeing, vertical distribution of turbulence strength as well as the coherent time of the turbulence. Modeling work, intended to understand the operation bandwidth of adaptive optics systems make use of Kolmogorov turbulence theory as well as time series of atmospheric parameters obtained from regression analysis based on site characterization data. However, most of the time, even in the more detailed studies, one parameter though important is not measured and monitored with the same attention than the other turbulence parameters, namely, the outer scale of the turbulence. The image quality in large aperture telescopes has been shown to have an important dependence on the instantaneous magnitude of the outer scale of the turbulence. In general terms, the shorter the outer scale of the turbulence, the lower the wavefront variance over the aperture of the imaging system and consequently the higher the image quality. This study focuses in using reconstructed open loop wavefront sensor data observed simultaneously by the two apertures of the Large Binocular Telescope (LBT) to compute and monitor the outer scale of the turbulence.

ARGOS is the Ground Layer Adaptive Optics system of the Large Binocular Telescope, it uses three Laser Guide Stars at 12 km altitude, generated by Rayleigh backscattered light of pulsed Nd:YAG lasers at 532nm. The wavefront distortion in the Ground Layer is measured by three Shack-Hartmann WFS, sampling with 15×15 subaperture the three LGS arranged on a single CCD with 8×8px per square subaperture. The SLOpe Detection And Ranging (SLODAR) is a method used to measure the turbulence profiles. Cross correlation of wavefronts gradient from multiple stars is used to estimate the relative strengths of turbulent layers at different altitudes. In the ARGOS case the LGS are arranged on a triangle inscribed in a 2 arcmin radius circle, so we expect an effective slopes correlation up to 5km altitude. We present here the results of a study aimed to implement the SLODAR method on ARGOS performed with the idl-based simulation code used to characterize the ARGOS performance. Simulation implements the atmospheric turbulence on different layers with variable strength, altitude and wind speed. The algorithm performance are evaluated comparing the input turbulence with the cross-correlation of the SH slopes acquired in open loop.

Laser Tomography Adaptive Optics (LTAO) is one of adaptive optics systems planned for the Giant Magellan Telescope (GMT). End-to-end simulation tools that are able to cope with the complexity and computational burden of the AO systems to be installed on the extremely large telescopes such as GMT prove to be an integral part of the GMT LTAO system development endeavors. SL95, the Fortran 95 Simulation Library, is one of the software tools successfully used for the LTAO system end-to-end simulations. The goal of SL95 project is to provide a complete set of generic, richly parameterized mathematical models for key elements of the segmented telescope wavefront control systems including both active and adaptive optics as well as the models for atmospheric turbulence, extended light sources like Laser Guide Stars (LGS), light propagation engines and closed-loop controllers. The library is implemented as a hierarchical collection of classes capable of mutual interaction, which allows one to assemble complex wavefront control system configurations with multiple interacting control channels. In this paper we demonstrate the SL95 capabilities by building an integrated end-to-end model of the GMT LTAO system with 7 control channels: LGS tomography with Adaptive Secondary and on-instrument deformable mirrors, tip-tilt and vibration control, LGS stabilization, LGS focus control, truth sensor-based dynamic noncommon path aberration rejection, pupil position control, SLODAR-like embedded turbulence profiler. The rich parameterization of the SL95 classes allows to build detailed error budgets propagating through the system multiple errors and perturbations such as turbulence-, telescope-, telescope misalignment-, segment phasing error-, non-common path-induced aberrations, sensor noises, deformable mirror-to-sensor mis-registration, vibration, temporal errors, etc. We will present a short description of the SL95 architecture, as well as the sample GMT LTAO system simulation results.

Object-Oriented Matlab Adaptive Optics (OOMAO) is a Matlab toolbox dedicated to Adaptive Optics (AO) systems. OOMAO is based on a small set of classes representing the source, atmosphere, telescope, wavefront sensor, Deformable Mirror (DM) and an imager of an AO system. This simple set of classes allows simulating Natural Guide Star (NGS) and Laser Guide Star (LGS) Single Conjugate AO (SCAO) and tomography AO systems on telescopes up to the size of the Extremely Large Telescopes (ELT). The discrete phase screens that make the atmosphere model can be of infinite size, useful for modeling system performance on large time scales. OOMAO comes with its own parametric influence function model to emulate different types of DMs. The cone effect, altitude thickness and intensity profile of LGSs are also reproduced. Both modal and zonal modeling approach are implemented. OOMAO has also an extensive library of theoretical expressions to evaluate the statistical properties of turbulence wavefronts. The main design characteristics of the OOMAO toolbox are object-oriented modularity, vectorized code and transparent parallel computing. OOMAO has been used to simulate and to design the Multi-Object AO prototype Raven at the Subaru telescope and the Laser Tomography AO system of the Giant Magellan Telescope. In this paper, a Laser Tomography AO system on an ELT is simulated with OOMAO. In the first part, we set-up the class parameters and we link the instantiated objects to create the source optical path. Then we build the tomographic reconstructor and write the script for the pseudo-open-loop controller.

Solar Adaptive Optics (AO) shares many issues with night-time AO, but it also has its own particularities. The wavefront sensing is performed using correlations to efficiently work on the solar granulation as a reference. The field of view for that measurement usually is around 10". A sensor collecting such a wide field of view averages wavefront information from different sky directions, and the anisoplanatism thus has a peculiar impact on the performance of solar AO and MCAO systems. Since we are entering the era of large solar telescopes (European Solar Telescope, Advanced Technology Solar Telescope) understanding this issue is crucial to evaluate its impact on the performance of future AO systems. In this paper we model the correlating wide field sensor and the way it senses the high altitude turbulence. Thanks to this improved modelling, we present an analysis of the influence of this sensing on the performance of each AO configuration, conventional AO and MCAO. In addition to the analytical study, simulations similar to the case of the EST AO systems with FRiM-3D (the Fractal Iterative Method for Atmospheric tomography) are used in order to highlight the relative influence of design parameters. In particular, results show the performance evolution when increasing the telescope diameter. We analyse the effect of high altitude turbulence correlation showing that increasing the diameter of the telescope does not degrade the performance when correcting on the same spatial and temporal scales.

MAORY is the adaptive optics module of the E-ELT that will feed the MICADO imaging camera through a gravity invariant exit port. MAORY has been foreseen to implement MCAO correction through three high order deformable mirrors driven by the reference signals of six Laser Guide Stars (LGSs) feeding as many Shack- Hartmann Wavefront Sensors. A three Natural Guide Stars (NGSs) system will provide the low order correction. We develop a code for the end-to-end simulation of the MAORY adaptive optics (AO) system in order to obtain high-fidelity modeling of the system performance. It is based on the IDL language and makes extensively uses of the GPUs. Here we present the architecture of the simulation tool and its achieved and expected performance.

A future plan for the next-generation Subaru adaptive optics, is a system based on an adaptive secondary mirror. A ground-layer adaptive optics combined with a new wide-field multi-object infrared camera and spectrograph will be a main application of the adaptive secondary mirror. A preliminary simulation results show that the resolution achieved by the ground-layer adaptive optics is expected to be better than 0.2 arcsecond in the K-band over 15 arcminutes field-of-view. In this paper, the performance simulation is updated taking dependence on observation conditions, the zenith angle and the season, into account.

The recently proposed concept of Global MCAO (GMCAO) aims to look for Natural Guide Stars in a very wide technical Field of View (FoV), to increase the overall sky coverage, and deals with the consequent depth of focus reduction introducing numerically a quite-high number of Virtual Deformable Mirrors (VDMs), which are then the starting point for an optimization of the real DMs shapes for the correction of the -smaller- scientific FoV. To translate the GMCAO concept into a real system, a number of parameters requires to be analyzed and optimized, like the number of references and VDMs to be used, the technical FoV size, the spatial samplings, the sensing wavelength. These and some other major choices, like the open loop WFSs concept and design, will then drive the requirements and the performance of the system (e.g. limiting magnitude, linear response, and sensitivity). This paper collects some major results of the on-going study on the feasibility of an Adaptive Optics system for the E-ELT, based on GMCAO, with a particular emphasis on the sky coverage issue. Besides the sensitivity analysis of the optimization of the already mentioned parameters, such a topic involves the implementation of an IDL code simulation tool to estimate the system performance in terms of Strehl Ratio in a 2×2 arcmin FoV, when a variable number of NGSs and VDMs are used. Different technical FoV diameters for the references selection and various constellations can be also compared. This study could be the starting point for a dedicated laboratory testing and, in the future, an on-sky experiment at an 8m telescope with a “scaled down” demonstrator.

We present in this paper the current simulation results of the single-conjugate adaptive optics (SCAO) mode of the wide-field imager MICADO. MICADO is a near-IR camera for the European ELT, featuring a wide field (75"), spectroscopic, and coronagraphic capabilities. It has been chosen by ESO as one of the two first-light instruments. MICADO will be optimized for the multi-conjugate adaptive optics module MAORY and will also work in SCAO mode. This SCAO mode will provide MICADO a high-level, on-axis correction, making use of the adaptive secondary M4 in the telescope. It is shown here that the on-axis compensation level reaches Strehl ratios (SR) of the order of 0.70 in K band under median seeing condition, and quickly degrades with field angle. However, despite the important leak of the light from the core towards the halo, we demonstrate how the point spread function (PSF) remains topped with an Airy-like pattern even at low SR below 0.02. This known effect, due to the large telescope aperture, was already shown in past studies. We show here how dependent from the outer scale value this effect is, and we study how the presence of this peak allows the instrument to preserve astrometric capabilities even far out of the isoplanatic patch domain.

Extensive simulations of AO performance for several E-ELT instruments (including EAGLE, MOSAIC, HIRES and MAORY) have been ongoing using the Monte-Carlo Durham AO Simulation Package. We present the latest simulation results, including studies into DM requirements, dependencies of performance on asterism, detailed point spread function generation, accurate telescope modelling, and studies of laser guide star effects. Details of simulations will be given, including the use of optical models of the E-ELT to generate wave- front sensor pupil illumination functions, laser guide star modelling, and investigations of different many-layer atmospheric profiles. We discuss issues related to ELT-scale simulation, how we have overcome these, and how we will be approaching forthcoming issues such as modelling of advanced wavefront control, multi-rate wavefront sensing, and advanced treatment of extended laser guide star spots. We also present progress made on integrating simulation with AO real-time control systems. The impact of simulation outcomes on instrument design studies will be discussed, and the ongoing work plan presented.

The scope of this paper is to describe some possible design concepts of the post optical relay inside the multi conjugate adaptive optics module for the European Extremely Large Telescope. The module is planned to be placed at the Nasmyth focus of the telescope. The optical relay must re-image the telescope focal plane with diffraction limited performance and low geometric distortion, for a field of view of 75” and for a wavelength range between 0.8 and 2.4μm. A technical annular field of view with inner diameter of 75” and outer diameter of 160” to search 3 for natural guide stars is also required. Wavefront sensing is performed by means of 6 laser guide stars arranged on a circle of at least 120” diameter while wavefront correction is performed by two deformable mirrors inside the relay, in addition to the telescope adaptive mirror. The final optical design will be a trade-off among adaptive optics performance, optical interface requirements, mechanical interface requirements and technological feasibility of key hardware components. The size of the deformable mirrors and the image quality of the layer conjugates are important design drivers, related to the design of the collimating optics after the input focal plane and to the deformable mirrors tilt respect to the chief ray. The optical interface at the output focal plane must be acceptable for the client instruments, in terms of field curvature, focal ratio and exit pupil position. The number of optical surfaces inside the relay has to be as small as possible to limit thermal background. Splitting of the laser guide star channel from the science light channel may be achieved either in wavelength, by means of a dichroic placed close to a pupil image, or in field, by means of an perforated dichroic placed at an intermediate focal plane. The laser guide star beams have to be focused with acceptable optical performance on a fixed image plane compensating the effects of the sodium layer range variation with Zenith angle during observations. Other relay configurations, in the case of further client instruments to be fed by the relay, are under investigation. The designs must also take into consideration the required clearance among the optical elements to avoid vignetting and mechanical interference issues, while fitting in the available space on the telescope Nasmyth platform. In this paper two different optical design configurations are analysed, taking into account all these aspects. For all the proposed designs the optical performance will be presented.

Multi-object adaptive optics (MOAO) is a novel adaptive optics (AO) technique for wide-field multi-object spectrographs (MOS). MOAO aims at applying dedicated wavefront corrections to numerous separated tiny patches spread over a large field of view (FOV), limited only by that of the telescope. The control of each deformable mirror (DM) is done individually using a tomographic reconstruction of the phase based on measurements from a number of wavefront sensors (WFS) pointing at natural and artificial guide stars in the field. We have developed a novel hybrid, pseudo-analytical simulation scheme, somewhere in between the end-to- end and purely analytical approaches, that allows us to simulate in detail the tomographic problem as well as noise and aliasing with a high fidelity, and including fitting and bandwidth errors thanks to a Fourier-based code. Our tomographic approach is based on the computation of the minimum mean square error (MMSE) reconstructor, from which we derive numerically the covariance matrix of the tomographic error, including aliasing and propagated noise. We are then able to simulate the point-spread function (PSF) associated to this covariance matrix of the residuals, like in PSF reconstruction algorithms. The advantage of our approach is that we compute the same tomographic reconstructor that would be computed when operating the real instrument, so that our developments open the way for a future on-sky implementation of the tomographic control, plus the joint PSF and performance estimation. The main challenge resides in the computation of the tomographic reconstructor which involves the inversion of a large matrix (typically 40 000 × 40 000 elements). To perform this computation efficiently, we chose an optimized approach based on the use of GPUs as accelerators and using an optimized linear algebra library: MORSE providing a significant speedup against standard CPU oriented libraries such as Intel MKL. Because the covariance matrix is symmetric, several optimization schemes can be envisioned to speedup even further the computation. Optimizing the speed of the reconstructor computation is of major interest not only for the design study of MOAO instruments, but also for future routine operations of the system as the reconstructor has to be updated regularly to cope for atmospheric variability.

We are conducting a concept study on a wide field of regard (FoR) Multi-Object Adaptive Optics (MOAO) system for Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT-AGE: TMT-Analyzer for Galaxies in the Early universe). The main science target of TMT-AGE is high-redshift galaxies. Considering the small number density of high-redshift galaxies, enlarging the FoR of an MOAO system up to around 100 is critical. In order to increase the FoR of an MOAO system, we propose a new tomographic reconstruction method. In the new method, we use atmospheric wind profiles and WFS measurements at previous time steps to increase the number of virtual measurement points of atmospheric turbulence layers for tomographic reconstruction. We present the results of numerical simulations with the new tomography method. The simulations show the new method can reduce the tomographic error in a wide FoR.

The search spaces in nonlinear optimization phase retrieval problems are of high dimensionality, making them difficult to visualize. Using a simplified low-order model, we explore the shape of the phase retrieval error surfaces using two-dimensional (2D) slices to visualize the relationship between different aberrations. We show how different pairs of aberrations exhibit very different coupling with one another and different distributions and frequencies of local minima, and discuss how this relates to the phase retrieval capture-range problem.

The main objective of the COMPASS project is to provide a full scale end-to-end AO development platform, able to address the E-ELT scale and designed as a free, open source numerical tool with a long term maintenance plan. The development of this platform is based on a full integration of software with hardware and relies on an optimized implementation on heterogeneous hardware using GPUs as accelerators. In this paper, we present the overall platform, the various work packages of this project, the milestones to be reached, the results already obtained and the first output of the ongoing collaborations.

Spectropolarimetry is nowadays one of the most used tool to investigate small scale (100 km) magnetic fields in the Sun’s atmosphere. In addition, the forthcoming 4-meter class solar telescopes will provide an unprecedented view of the solar magnetism with an accuracy (10^-4) never reached before, and on spatial scales which are at least twice as smaller. For this reason MCAO systems providing high Strehl ratios on a large field of view are being developed. Thus, the study of any possible effect of such AO systems on the polarization accuracy has to be carefully assessed. In this contribution we present preliminary results of laboratory tests conducted with the aim of evaluating possible drawbacks of the use of deformable mirrors on the spectropolarimetric accuracy.

Multi-Conjugate Adaptive Optics systems based on sodium Laser Guide Stars may exploit Natural Guide Stars to solve intrinsic limitations of artificial beacons (tip-tilt indetermination and anisoplanatism) and to mitigate the impact of the sodium layer structure and variability. The sodium layer may also have transverse structures leading to differential effects among Laser Guide Stars. Starting from the analysis of the input perturbations related to the Sodium Layer variability, modeled directly on measured sodium layer profiles, we analyze, through a simplified end-to-end simulation code, the impact of the low/medium orders induced on global performance of the European Extremely Large Telescope Multi-Conjugate Adaptive Optics module MAORY.

The COMputing Platform for Adaptive optics SystemS (COMPASS) will be used to perform end-to-end simulations of the AO system of the E-ELT. COMPASS will perform massively parallel computations using GPUs as accelerators. The completed project will involve several different aspects. In this paper we present the modelization of a pyramid wavefront sensor (P-WFS). This sensor offers an increased sensitivity compared to the Shack-Hartmann wavefront sensor, and a time-varying phase modulation increases the dynamic range of the P-WFS. This makes it a particularly interesting choice for an extreme adaptive optics system, such as the one that will be used with the planetary camera and spectrograph (PCS) instrument dedicated to exoplanet characterization with the E-ELT. We review previous P-WFS models, and in addition to describing its current implementation in COMPASS, we give a first look at the P-WFS expected performance in the presence of realistic optical aberrations.

We present a model of field-dependent aberrations arising in the NIRC2 instrument on the W. M. Keck II telescope. We use high signal-to-noise phase diversity data employing a source in the Nasmyth focal plane to construct a model of the optical path difference as a function of field position and wavelength. With a differential wavefront error of up to 190 nm, this effect is one of the main sources of astrometric and photometric measurement uncertainties. Our tests of temporal stability show sufficient reliability for our measurements over a 20-month period at the field extrema. Additionally, while chromaticity exists, applying a correction for field-dependent aberrations provides overall improvement compared to the existing aberrations present across the field of view.

We are currently implementing a solar adaptive optics (AO) and multi-conjugate adaptive optics (MCAO) simulation package that provides a full simulation, including wavefront sensor cross-correlations, and is able to operate at quasi-realtime performance. This is made possible by modern personal computers with many cores, which allow the operation of a solar AO system with relatively inexpensive off-the-shelf computers. The simulation package uses KAOS, a mature AO controller software used at the GREGOR solar telescope, to operate the simulated AO system. It provides a simulated environment that is presented to KAOS to achieve a highly realistic and fast simulation of solar AO.

The advent of expensive, large-aperture telescopes and complex adaptive optics (AO) systems has strengthened the need for detailed simulation of such systems from the top of the atmosphere to control algorithms. The credibility of any simulation is underpinned by the quality of the atmosphere model used for introducing phase variations into the incident photons. Hitherto, simulations which incorporate wind layers have relied upon phase screen generation methods that tax the computation and memory capacities of the platforms on which they run. This places limits on parameters of a simulation, such as exposure time or resolution, thus compromising its utility. As aperture sizes and fields of view increase the problem will only get worse. We present an autoregressive method for evolving atmospheric phase that is efficient in its use of computation resources and allows for variability in the power contained in frozen flow or stochastic components of the atmosphere. Users have the flexibility of generating atmosphere datacubes in advance of runs where memory constraints allow to save on computation time or of computing the phase at each time step for long exposure times. Preliminary tests of model atmospheres generated using this method show power spectral density and rms phase in accordance with established metrics for Kolmogorov models.