Modeling low order aberrations in laser guide star adaptive optics systems
Abstract
When using a laser guide star (LGS) adaptive optics (AO) system, quasi-static aberrations are observed between the measured wavefronts from the LGS wavefront sensor (WFS) and the natural guide star (NGS) WFS. These LGS aberrations, which can be as much as 1200 nm RMS on the Keck II LGS AO system, arise due to the finite height and structure of the sodium layer. The LGS aberrations vary significantly between nights due to the difference in sodium structure. In this paper, we successfully model these LGS aberrations for the Keck II LGS AO system. We use this model to characterize the LGS aberrations as a function of pupil angle, elevation, sodium structure, uplink tip/tilt error, detector field of view, the number of detector pixels, and seeing. We also employ the model to estimate the LGS aberrations for the Palomar LGS AO system, the planned Keck I and the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT) LGS AO systems. The LGS aberrations increase with increasing telescope diameter, but are reduced by central projection of the laser compared to side projection.
Additional Information
© 2007 Optical Society of America Original Manuscript: January 24, 2007; Manuscript Accepted: March 29, 2007; Revised Manuscript: March 19, 2007; Published: April 3, 2007. The data presented herein were obtained at the W.M. Keck Observatory, which is operated as a scientific partnership among the California Institute of Technology, the University of California, and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. The Observatory was made possible by the generous financial support of the W.M. Keck Foundation. The authors wish to recognize and acknowledge the significant cultural role and reverence that the summit of Mauna Kea has always had within the Hawaiian community. We are most fortunate to have the opportunity to conduct observations from this mountain. This work has been supported by the National Science Foundation Science and Technology Center for Adaptive Optics, managed by the University of California at Santa Cruz under cooperative agreement No. AST - 9876783.Files
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Additional details
- Eprint ID
- 8190
- Resolver ID
- CaltechAUTHORS:CLAoe07
- Created
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2007-08-01Created from EPrint's datestamp field
- Updated
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2019-10-02Created from EPrint's last_modified field