High-speed-image motion study at the WIYN 3.5-m telescope

Charles F. Claver; George H. Jacoby; David R. Silva; Arthur D. Code

doi:10.1117/12.321655

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11 September 1998 High-speed-image motion study at the WIYN 3.5-m telescope

Charles F. Claver, George H. Jacoby, David R. Silva, Arthur D. Code

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Proceedings Volume 3353, Adaptive Optical System Technologies; (1998) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.321655
Event: Astronomical Telescopes and Instrumentation, 1998, Kona, HI, United States

Abstract

We have obtained high speed image motion data from the 3.5M WIYN telescope at Kitt Peak as part of commissioning and characterizing efforts. These data come from a small frame transfer CCD feeding dedicated centroiding hardware called FastTrack, which provides x and y data pairs at frequencies > Hertz. In this paper we use power spectra from these data to investigate telescope structure resonance and characterize the site + telescope performance for gains by implementing tip-tilt correction at WIYN. At frequencies below 20hz the image motion power spectra are consistent with Kolmogorov turbulence models but show excess power at higher frequencies. Over the past 2 years the FastTrack data have consistently shown that image improvements of 0.10-0.20 arcseconds can be obtained with a simple tip-tilt systems that fully corrects frequencies 20Hz and lower. The FastTrack power spectra have also revealed a complex structure of coherent frequencies between 22 and 28 Hertz, similar to what has been seen on other light weight stiff telescopes. In other tests, we have used simultaneous star trail data to estimate the isokinetic angle for frequencies below 10hz. We have found that the one dimensional correlation remains above 0.8 within an angular radius of approximately 240 arcseconds. These data show that a high speed tip-tilt system can net significant improvements to image quality at WIYN over a relatively large field.

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Charles F. Claver, George H. Jacoby, David R. Silva, and Arthur D. Code "High-speed-image motion study at the WIYN 3.5-m telescope", Proc. SPIE 3353, Adaptive Optical System Technologies, (11 September 1998); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.321655

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