Gemini Observatory: Design and production of
Multi-Conjugate Adaptive Optics (MCAO) software including Beam Transfer
Optics
The client
The Gemini
Observatory is an international $180m
project, operating twin 8.1 metre reflecting telescopes, one sited in
Hawaii and the other in Chile, which together provide complete sky
coverage.
Project background
The adaptive optics system (Multi-Conjugate
Adaptive Optics, MCAO) is a new capability being developed for
Gemini
North and South. It is a major new instrument that will provide
significant advances in overcoming the problems of atmospheric
turbulence.
Our responsibility
Observatory Sciences is involved in both the
design and the production of the software for this system, specifically:
- The Beam Transfer Optics (BTO) system, which
will take a laser beam from the centre section of the telescope and
launch it from the Laser-Launch Telescope behind the secondary mirror.
- The Beam Transfer Optics Diagnostics Sensor
System (BTODSS), which will use a pair of commercial CCD cameras to
image the near and far field patterns of the Gemini Laser system and
provide corrections to the BTO mirrors.
- The Adaptive Optics Module (AOM), which
contains all the optics and sensors to compensate the input f/16 beam
from the telescope and relay it to the instrument at f/33. The
components of the AOM are mounted on an optical bench that is attached
to the Instrument Support Structure. Observatory Sciences was
selected to provide the control system for all the mechanisms within
the AOM apart from the control of the tip/tilt and deformable mirrors.
Technical
BTODSS will be the first Gemini EPICS system
based on Linux rather than VxWorks; will incorporate beam quality
analysis by deriving the phase of the laser wavefront from the
intensities of the near and far field intensity distributions.
< back to projects
|
