Astronomical science with laser guide star adaptive optics: a brief review, a current snapshot, and a bright future

Michael C. Liu

doi:10.1117/12.672759

27 June 2006 Astronomical science with laser guide star adaptive optics: a brief review, a current snapshot, and a bright future

Michael C. Liu

Author Affiliations +

Proceedings Volume 6272, Advances in Adaptive Optics II; 62720H (2006) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.672759
Event: SPIE Astronomical Telescopes + Instrumentation, 2006, Orlando, Florida , United States

Abstract

We briefly discuss the past, present, and future state of astronomical science with laser guide star adaptive optics (LGS AO). We present a tabulation of refereed science papers from LGS AO, amounting to a total of 23 publications as of May 2006. The first decade of LGS AO science (1995-2004) was marked by modest science productivity (≈1 paper/year), as LGS systems were being implemented and commissioned. The last two years have seen explosive science growth (≈1 paper/month), largely due to the new LGS system on the Keck II 10-meter telescope, and point to an exciting new era for high angular resolution science. To illustrate the achievable on-sky performance, we present an extensive collection of Keck LGS performance measurements from the first year of our brown dwarf near-IR imaging survey. We summarize the current strengths and weaknesses of LGS compared to Hubble Space Telescope, offer a list of desired improvements, and look forward to a bright future for LGS given its wide-scale implementation on large ground-based telescopes.

Citation Download Citation

Michael C. Liu "Astronomical science with laser guide star adaptive optics: a brief review, a current snapshot, and a bright future", Proc. SPIE 6272, Advances in Adaptive Optics II, 62720H (27 June 2006); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.672759

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