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Published March 5, 2013 | Published
Book Section - Chapter Open

KAPAO: a MEMS-based natural guide star adaptive optics system

Abstract

We describe KAPAO, our project to develop and deploy a low-cost, remote-access, natural guide star adaptive optics (AO) system for the Pomona College Table Mountain Observatory (TMO) 1-meter telescope. We use a commercially available 140-actuator BMC MEMS deformable mirror and a version of the Robo-AO control software developed by Caltech and IUCAA. We have structured our development around the rapid building and testing of a prototype system, KAPAO-Alpha, while simultaneously designing our more capable final system, KAPAO-Prime. The main differences between these systems are the prototype's reliance on off-the-shelf optics and a single visible-light science camera versus the final design's improved throughput and capabilities due to the use of custom optics and dual-band, visible and near-infrared imaging. In this paper, we present the instrument design and on-sky closed-loop testing of KAPAO-Alpha as well as our plans for KAPAO-Prime. The primarily undergraduate-education nature of our partner institutions, both public (Sonoma State University) and private (Pomona and Harvey Mudd Colleges), has enabled us to engage physics, astronomy, and engineering undergraduates in all phases of this project. This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 0960343.

Additional Information

© 2013 Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE). This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 0960343. Additional funding for aspects of this work were provided by the Pomona College Summer Undergraduate Research Program, the Rose Hills Foundation (PC student funding), the Newkirk student assistantship (SSU student funding) and the Mt. Cuba Astronomical Foundation which supported the SSU AO testbed. Further acknowledgment should be made to early work in MEMS AO by the Villages team led by Don Gavel at the UCO/Lick Observatory Laboratory for Adaptive Optics and for the early work on the CIT Camera project by Matthew Britton. Co-authors Severson and Choi are also especially thankful for the excellent work of the student contributors to the KAPAO project and the key project assistance from Drs. Spjut, Baranec, and Riddle.

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