Unique Antarctic Atmosphere: Implications for Adaptive Optics

Abstract

The turbulence structure of the atmosphere is the primary limitation to adaptive optics system performance on extremely large telescopes — driving current world-wide site testing campaigns. The potential for adaptive optics correction on extremely large telescopes located at Dome C station on the Antarctic plateau is investigated here. Due to the unique atmospheric characteristics of this site it is found that a natural guide star adaptive optics system with a single deformable mirror should outperform a multi-conjugate multi-laser guide star system at a mid-latitude site.

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