Carmelo Arcidiacono – Giornate dell’OA Bologna Feb 19th 2016

Glass, Silicon and Bits as building

blocks of Adaptive Optics for

Astronomy

About me, “to set the stage”

Working in Instrumentation for Astronomy since 2001.

My specialty is adaptive optics engineering (AO) with significant wandering

into telescope alignment and scientific exploitation of AO instruments.

• the A to Z of the ESO Multi-conjugate

Adaptive Optics Demonstrator for the VLT

(MAD), the first Multi-Conjugate Adaptive

Optics instrument for Night-time Astronomy.

• Alignment of the Vlt Survey Telescope (VST)

• Science Demonstration and Science

Verification of the First Light Adaptive Optics

system (FLAO) of the Large Binocular

Telescope (LBT)

• From the very A to the very Z of the LINC-

NIRVANA MCAO Fizeau Interferometer for

LBT

• And eventually from The B and MAORY as

Adaptive Optics Engineer and coordinating

that WorkPackage, that’s my job since my

arrival here in Bologna in 2011

• MAORY is the Muticonjugate

adaptive Optics system for the

E-ELT,

• In Bologna we have the project

office as Paolo, Emiliano, Laura

and Matteo [I hope] told you.

What I do now:

• The development of a

Numerical Simulation Tool to

simulate the mirrors, the

wavefront sensors, the

telescope, the atmosphere

[LAURA’s Talk]

• Use of the tool to define the best

control strategies of the module

What’s the plan for 2016:

Running full simulations of the

MAORY to find best trade-off

solutions in a iterative way with the

other WorkPackages (Optics, RTC

among the others).

Help from Roberto di Luca to set-

up, upgrade, reboot and repair the

Workstation.

Among other issues I recall..

•SSD upgrade of the hard drives

•GPU cooling [air flows]

MAORY for the E-ELT. 80% of my FTE

LINC = Lbt INterferometric Camera NIRVANA = NearInfraRed&Visible

Adaptive camera and iNterferometer

for Astronomy

What LINC-NIRVANA (LN) is Is a twin of multi-conjugate adaptive optics (MCAO) module and interferometric

beam combination.

LN operates in Fizeau-mode, delivering IMAGES with the 23m baseline and

12m effective collecting area->11mas-19mas J, H, Ks on a 10”x10” camera

[2k×2k HAWAII-2 detector]

Started in 2002!

AO Step by step I

Single Conjugate AO ->

Now @LBT: The First Light AO for the LUCI ½

High SR on axis but a limited sky coverage

One Wavefront sensor using

a guide star retrieves the info about

the air coloumn.

Pyramid WFS

One deformable mirror updates

its shape to follow the

wavefront evolution.

Adaptive Secondary

AO Step by step II

Multi Conjugate AO ->

LINC-NIRVANA configuration

[MAORY but the lasers] For PSF uniformity and Sky Coverage

Two wavefront sensors

retrieve the info about the atmo

VOLUME using multiple guide stars.

Two deformable mirrors

update their shape to follow the

wavefront evolution.

Multipyramid wfs

Adaptive Sec

Xinetics 349

Ultimate Configuration MCAO+Interferometry STATUS: 2016A Integration, +2016B

more Integration and test.

Commissioning and FIRST Science

LIGHT in 2017 A&B

Meanwhile USING LBTI: [F. Cusano talk]

The First 23m telescope

observation of an extended object

This is interesting!

Or Spatially resolved M-band

emission from Io's Loki Patera Fizeau imaging at the 22.8 meter LBT (Conrad & al., AJ , 2015)

The LBT Interferometric PSF

x,h – plane u,v -plane

u,v - plane λ/8

.4m

λ/22.7m

23 m

8.4 m

The High resolution

information rotates

with the baseline

projection on sky

12/2013 Io [eye-oh] M band observations –

baselines [1h]

7 nods on 60 degrees on

parallactic angles

1 PSF star calibration

17ms exp allows

Lucky Fringing:

Selection of the frames

(5%) with interference peak

at the PSF center Δθ=60° =0° =120°

1’’.1

u,v

plane

Io observations – Deconvolution and

Reconstructions - M band

1. Multiple Richardson Lucy (RL) for high SNR = 1 image

2. 7x Single RL for 7 images to correct for Io rotation

3. 16 known volcanoes, with 2 new eruptions

1 2 3

Loki Pele

Important notice about:

Io observations and Loki Patera

• Io is the most volcanically active body in our Solar System (SS)

• Loki Patera is the most powerful volcano in the SS

• M-band, 4.8μm, 32mas FWHM @LBT ~ K-band @ Keck

• High temperature lava Black Body 1000K peak is in K,

and cooling regions at 500K in M:

• 32 mas ~ 100km on Io

• 1px = 10mas = 30km = Etna

K@KECK GALILEO M-LBTI VOYAGER Aug 2013 Dec 2013

Lava flows started

here, Keck Obs. K,

Aug 2013

In the following months lava front was moving across the patera,

resurfacing the crust. [we see the cooling]

LBTI Dec 13

data shows

the front of the

resurfacing

wave, and the

persistent high

temp spot

1st interferometric

observation at LBT of a

spatially resolved object

LATT: Large Aperture Telescope Technology

- Or - How to sell ground based adaptive secondaries

as space active primaries

It WAS founded through an Esa contract ‘10-’15. But now in standby

CGS S.p.A.: coordinator

ADS International: mechanical System

MICROGATE: electr.+control systems+testing

CNR-INO Italian Optics Inst.: shell

INAF-Italian Astrophysics Inst.:

AO expertise + optical testing

ESA

INO

!3 more slides!

• 2 in 1: active element + lightweight < 22kg/m2 [JWST 14+14]

• low areal density compared to existing systems

• no need to develop novel lightweight technologies

• No relay, no additional optics, simple design

• Natural solution for segmented mirrors

• Alignment+phasing allocated to active optics

PROTOTYPE Built by industries and tested in Arcetri and Milan

A deformable primary mirror

is attractive

Optical Diameter 400 mm

LATT technology is a TRL 5:

PRECISE: Flat WFE: 15 ~ 30 nm RMS

ROBUST: No print-through dead actuators No hard points

FLEXIBLE: Accurate phasing control Deployment/alignment of segmented system

Large stroke helps

PREDICTABLE: Very accurate FEA

modeling Useful to adjust the control strategy or to create synthetic

calibration

VLT Influence Functions: data vs

FEA Diff < 2% RMS (meas. noise)

Tested in lab (VLT, ELT prot.)

Tested at telescope,

Routinely working at LBT

From LATT prototype:

40 cm, 19 acts

Ideas to design

1m on 7 segments

or

1m, monolithic 3-5m, segmented

Applications:

LIDAR

Earth monitoring

Telecommunications

Astronomical telescope

LATT: a brick for more complex systems,

but need more R&D for upgrade TRL

“Terza età” University, 4 different

classes: telling stories about Science

and Scientists (Galileo, Einstein,

Marie & Pierre Curie, Fermi) in

collaboration with la Misericordia.

Educational Activities

Other Collaborations

Shanghai Astronomical

Observatory (SHAO)

on Pyramid WFS applications for

interferometry

Happy End!