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Published July 10, 2008 | Published
Book Section - Chapter Open

Facilitizing the Palomar AO laser guide star system

Abstract

We describe the work that has gone into taking the sodium Laser Guide Star (LGS) program on the Palomar AO system from a successful experiment to a facility instrument. In particular, we describe the operation of the system, the BTO (beam transfer optics) system which controls the path of the laser in the dome, the aircraft safety systems and the optical systems which allow us to take advantage of the unique properties of the macro/micro pulse laser. In addition we present on sky performance results that demonstrate K-band Strehl ratios of up to 48%

Additional Information

© 2008 Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers. This research was carried out in part at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, and was sponsored by the California Institute of Technology and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. Support for new instrument interfaces was generously provided by Ron and Glo Helin. This research is based on observations obtained at the Hale Telescope, Palomar Observatory, as part of a collaborative agreement between the California Institute of Technology, its divisions Caltech Optical Observatories and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (operated for NASA), and Cornell University.

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