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7 February 2003A visible-light AO system for the 4.2-m SOAR telescope
Pushing the adaptive compensation of turbulence into the visible range remains a challenging task, despite the progress of AO technology. An AO system for SOAR, now under conceptual study, will be able to reach diffraction-limited resolution at 0.5-0.7 microns with natural guide stars as faint as magnitude 12, enabling studies of stellar vicinities for faint companions, nebulosity, etc. During the second stage of the project a Rayleigh laser guide star will be implemented. In this mode, only the lowest turbulent layers will be compensated. The angular resolution will be only two times better than natural seeing, but, in exchange, the uniformly compensated field will reach 2-3 arc-minutes, offering unique capabilities in crowded fields (clusters, nearby galaxies).
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Andrei A. Tokovinin, Brooke Gregory, Hugo E. Schwarz, Valery Terebizh, Sandriane Thomas, "Visible-light AO system for the 4.2-m SOAR telescope," Proc. SPIE 4839, Adaptive Optical System Technologies II, (7 February 2003); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.457089