20 years of AO at ESO MACAO-CRIRES, or how to recycle a good idea.

20 years of AO at ESO20 years of AO at ESO

MACAO-CRIRES, or

how to recycle a good idea

EuropeanSouthernObservatory


© ESO 2009© ESO 2009Page 2 AO DepartmentAO Department

Multi-application curvature AOMulti-application curvature AO

MACAO was developed initially for VLTI needs

Two sisters of MACAO-VLTI benefited from it, SINFONI and CRIRES

CRIRES could have been the first Coudé instrument, instead of the actual Nasmyth AO (f/15 focus)




CRIRES for dummies




MACAO and CRIRES in a nutshell:MACAO and CRIRES in a nutshell:

Near IR-spectrograph 1 =>5 m High resolution (105) 4x1k Aladdin detectors 0.2" slit width, 0.1" pixel Slit viewer, 0.05” pixel

AO-assisted (MACAO-family) Curvature AO (robust, low maintenance,

APDs) 60 element bimorph DM / lenslets 420 Hz loop frequency, 60 Hz bandwidth Strehl >50% for R<13

Off-axis guiding in a ~50" field of view Sub-arcsec resolution along the slit

IR Slit-viewing guiding facility (1k detector)




High spectral resolutionHigh spectral resolution

for one molecular species typically several hundred rotation transitions can be seen, sampling:- different zones spatially- different physical conditions, e.g. T

Better isotopic separation A higher resolution allows filtering out many emission lines

of the atmosphere High absolute accuracy (RV e.g. for embedded stars) See Käufl et al., SPIE, 2004




Higher spatial resolutionHigher spatial resolution MACAO provides an excellent image quality for the Paranal site Diffraction-limit imaging is routinely achieved, with a high loop robustness Ensquared energy (0.2”) higher than 50% in K-band for MR brighter than 14

(Paufique et al, SPIE, 2008) Spatial resolution goes from 0.4” in good seeing conditions

down to <0.1” over wide wavelength range (1.6 -> 3.5 µm) (lesser) Correction on extended objects: comets nuclei,

satellites, Mars features !! AO criterion: enslitted energy,

expected up to 70% for bright stars Solar system objects tracking Elevation mode off-axis tracking

AO criterion: enslitted energy, expected up to 70% for bright stars

Io in K-band (raw), MACAO-CRIRES commissioning 2006

Strehl performance

0%

10%

20%

30%

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50%

60%

70%

80%

10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18

R-magnitude

Str

ehl

ensquared energy

0

10

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30

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60

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10 12 14 16 18star magnitude

ensq

uare

d en

ergy

in a

0.2

" w

ide

box




All togetherAll together

Both high spatial and spectral resolution allows retrieving exquisitely fine information on astrophysical objects

Model-dependent: discrimination down to 0.8 mas has been reached, using spectro-astrometry (Pontoppidan et al., ApJ 2008)

No competition existing in the 8-10 m class telescopes




Where did CRIRES come from?Where did CRIRES come from?

MACAO for VLTI and MACAO for SINFONI were the baseline for the MACAO projects

Individual components were re-used for CRIRES => design and tests greatly simplified




Concepts, finite productConcepts, finite product




AO developments and recyclingAO developments and recycling




MACAO-CRIRES milestonesMACAO-CRIRES milestones

CRIRES FDR 2001End of MACAO lab tests 02/2006Reintegration in Paranal 03/2006First light: 6th 04/2006CRIRES commissioning: 2007

20 years of AO at ESO MACAO-CRIRES, or how to recycle a good idea.

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