Measurement of atmospheric turbulence with a Shack-Hartmann wavefront sensor at the new MMT's prime focus

Patrick C. McGuire; Maud P. Langlois; Michael Lloyd-Hart; Troy A. Rhoadarmer; James Roger P. Angel

doi:10.1117/12.390366

7 July 2000 Measurement of atmospheric turbulence with a Shack-Hartmann wavefront sensor at the new MMT's prime focus

Patrick C. McGuire, Maud P. Langlois, Michael Lloyd-Hart, Troy A. Rhoadarmer, James Roger P. Angel

Proceedings Volume 4007, Adaptive Optical Systems Technology; (2000) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.390366
Event: Astronomical Telescopes and Instrumentation, 2000, Munich, Germany

Abstract

In order to prepare for the adaptive secondary program at the new 6.5 meter MMT, we have begun a campaign to measure atmospheric turbulence with a Shack-Hartmann wavefront sensor (WFS) camera. Our first efforts, prior to second aluminization of the primary, consisted of taking turbulence data with our WFS camera with special coma-correcting optics at the MMT prime focus, without a Cassegrain secondary mirror. Our first measurements consisted of 1000 frames of approximately 10 millisecond duration, taken approximately 3 seconds apart. We measure a 5/3 power law structure function, suggesting Kolmogorov turbulence, with an r₀ equals 15 cm, but with possible hints of an outer scale and tracking jitter in the structure function. At the end of our data acquisition, we deliberately put 2 micrometer of astigmatism into the primary mirror with its actuators, and in our analysis, we recover 1.7 +/- 0.3 micrometer of astigmatism. A brief analysis of the low-order modal amplitudes with the 3 second frame delay shows that there are significant self-correlations of the low-order modes even on this long time-scale.

Citation Download Citation

Patrick C. McGuire, Maud P. Langlois, Michael Lloyd-Hart, Troy A. Rhoadarmer, and James Roger P. Angel "Measurement of atmospheric turbulence with a Shack-Hartmann wavefront sensor at the new MMT's prime focus", Proc. SPIE 4007, Adaptive Optical Systems Technology, (7 July 2000); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.390366

ACCESS THE FULL ARTICLE

INSTITUTIONAL
Select your institution to access the SPIE Digital Library.

SELECT YOUR INSTITUTION

PERSONAL
Sign in with your SPIE account to access your personal subscriptions or to use specific features such as save to my library, sign up for alerts, save searches, etc.

PERSONAL SIGN IN

No SPIE Account? Create one

PURCHASE THIS CONTENT

SUBSCRIBE TO DIGITAL LIBRARY

50 downloads per 1-year subscription

Members: $195

Non-members: $335 ADD TO CART

25 downloads per 1 - year subscription

Members: $145

Non-members: $250 ADD TO CART

PURCHASE SINGLE ARTICLE

Includes PDF, HTML & Video, when available