Is anyone doing adaptive optics at a non institutional level?

Any one?

Marc Reinig
UCO/Lick
Laboratory for Adaptive Optics

I am, but it depends what you're calling non institutional level.

Best Regards,
Matt Tudor

Marc Reinig wrote in message ...
Any one?

Marc Reinig
UCO/Lick
Laboratory for Adaptive Optics

Subject: Is anyone doing adaptive optics at a non institutional level?
From: "Marc Reinig"
Date: 7/8/04 7:01 AM Pacific Daylight Time
Message-id:

Any one?

Marc Reinig
UCO/Lick
Laboratory for Adaptive Optics

Don't know if this is what you are looking for but we have been making the AO-7
for several years. It is a tip-tilt system for amateur applications that sells
for $1295. It will make corrections up to about 40X per sec although this may
not be fast enough for you depending on what you are trying to do with it. We
are also working on a transmissive AO for our Research Cameras that will
correct a larger FOV. This one should be ready in the next few months. You
can find the manual in PDF format for the smaller AO-7 he
http://www.sbig.com/pdffiles/ao7manual.pdf

It was tested at Kitt Peak on the 3 meter WYNN scope some time ago with good
results: http://www.sbig.com/sbwhtmls/eskimo_nebula.htm

If you're looking for a deformable mirror, I am not aware of any commercial
product like this yet.


Regards,
Michael Barber
SBIG

Under $10K, not counting telescope and science object camera.

What are you doing? Tip/Tilt only, other?

Marco


matt wrote:
I am, but it depends what you're calling non institutional level.

Best Regards,
Matt Tudor

Marc Reinig wrote in message ...

Any one?

Marc Reinig
UCO/Lick
Laboratory for Adaptive Optics

Thanks, I'll check it out.

Marco


MBarber500 wrote:
Subject: Is anyone doing adaptive optics at a non institutional level?
From: "Marc Reinig"
Date: 7/8/04 7:01 AM Pacific Daylight Time
Message-id:

Any one?

Marc Reinig
UCO/Lick
Laboratory for Adaptive Optics


Don't know if this is what you are looking for but we have been making the AO-7
for several years. It is a tip-tilt system for amateur applications that sells
for $1295. It will make corrections up to about 40X per sec although this may
not be fast enough for you depending on what you are trying to do with it. We
are also working on a transmissive AO for our Research Cameras that will
correct a larger FOV. This one should be ready in the next few months. You
can find the manual in PDF format for the smaller AO-7 he
http://www.sbig.com/pdffiles/ao7manual.pdf

It was tested at Kitt Peak on the 3 meter WYNN scope some time ago with good
results: http://www.sbig.com/sbwhtmls/eskimo_nebula.htm

If you're looking for a deformable mirror, I am not aware of any commercial
product like this yet.


Regards,
Michael Barber
SBIG

On Thu, 08 Jul 2004 14:01:54 GMT, "Marc Reinig" wrote:

Any one?

How adaptive? I have a transmissive tip/tilt corrector. Although it primarily
corrects for tracking errors, it can get its feedback from a different optical
path, or from an IR splitter, so it is possible to correct within the
isoplanatic zone of the imager target. I'm not really taking advantage of that.

There is, of course, the commercial AO7 tip/tilt corrector, but it receives its
feedback from a point far from the imaging target, and is therefore really just
a tracking corrector.

There was a semi-commercial venture by a Colorado Springs company a few years
back to produce a multiple segment telescope. They built at least one prototype,
with seven 8-inch segments, each with active positioning, and an array processor
based wavefront analyzer. I'm not sure how active that project is now; it is as
close as I've seen to a non-institutional AO program.

I think that higher order AO (beyond tip/tilt) is pretty much out of range for
amateurs because it is only useful for studying very small targets, usually at
longer wavelengths (which is seldom the interest of amateurs) and because it
pretty much requires meter-class (and much larger) telescopes to provide the
necessary signal to the wavefront analyzer.

_________________________________________________

Chris L Peterson
Cloudbait Observatory
http://www.cloudbait.com

The size of the target shouldn't matter, you could improve an image of the
moon with AO. Also, though the longer wavelengths are perturbed less by the
atmosphere, AO is still very effective for the visible range. And, if you
have a bright star in the FOV you don't need a large telescope. True, this
does limit the areas of the sky in which you can use AO, but ...

I think there was a time when CCD's were not for amatures either.

BTW, nice site. Do you take visitors?

Marco


"Chris L Peterson" wrote in message
...
I think that higher order AO (beyond tip/tilt) is pretty much out of range
for
amateurs because it is only useful for studying very small targets,
usually at
longer wavelengths (which is seldom the interest of amateurs) and because
it
pretty much requires meter-class (and much larger) telescopes to provide
the
necessary signal to the wavefront analyzer.

On Fri, 09 Jul 2004 04:15:34 GMT, "Marc Reinig" wrote:

The size of the target shouldn't matter, you could improve an image of the
moon with AO.

I'm not sure I follow. In the visible spectrum, the isoplanatic patch size
ranges from 1 to 15 arcseconds. For first order corrections, very short exposure
times at 1um, that might go as high as 30 arcseconds. With typical FOVs on the
order of 20 arcminutes or more, that essentially means that you have an
uncorrected image. What kind of reference would you use to correct an image of
the Moon?


Also, though the longer wavelengths are perturbed less by the
atmosphere, AO is still very effective for the visible range. And, if you
have a bright star in the FOV you don't need a large telescope.

But you will still only be able to correct a few arcseconds around that bright
star.


BTW, nice site. Do you take visitors?

Sure.

_________________________________________________

Chris L Peterson
Cloudbait Observatory
http://www.cloudbait.com

Chris L Peterson wrote:
On Fri, 09 Jul 2004 04:15:34 GMT, "Marc Reinig" wrote:
The size of the target shouldn't matter, you could improve an image of the
moon with AO.
I'm not sure I follow. In the visible spectrum, the isoplanatic patch size
ranges from 1 to 15 arcseconds. For first order corrections, very short exposure
times at 1um, that might go as high as 30 arcseconds. With typical FOVs on the
order of 20 arcminutes or more, that essentially means that you have an
uncorrected image. What kind of reference would you use to correct an image of
the Moon?
Use a high contrast region on the surface of the moon. Just like they do
with the solar telescopes that use AO. Think Registax... use the same
math to point the tip/tilt mirror. Sure, maybe you get 30" patch if
you're lucky, but we're talking about high resolution. You have to
oversample the telescope to make it worth while.

9um pixels, f/50 or higher, 750x500 pixels, on a 12" SCT, that's 15m FL.
So your FOV is only 90" anyway.


Eric.

On Fri, 09 Jul 2004 05:25:58 GMT, Eric wrote:

Use a high contrast region on the surface of the moon. Just like they do
with the solar telescopes that use AO. Think Registax... use the same
math to point the tip/tilt mirror. Sure, maybe you get 30" patch if
you're lucky, but we're talking about high resolution. You have to
oversample the telescope to make it worth while.

Eric-

I was thinking more in terms of higher order corrections, which are difficult to
do with anything but a point source reference. But I agree, at very high
magnifications you could get some benefit from tip/tilt using simple feature
correlation for control.

_________________________________________________

Chris L Peterson
Cloudbait Observatory
http://www.cloudbait.com