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The Adaptive Optics Facility (AOF) for the VLT

The AOF is a project led by the Adaptive Optics Department of ESO, aiming at upgrading a single 8m Unit telescope of the Paranal Observatory with an Adaptive Secondary Mirror (AdSec). The goal is to make this telescope an Adaptive Telescope providing turbulence corrected images at all focii, without the addition of adaptive modules and supplementary optics in front of the instruments.

The concept is far more reaching than only a AdSec mirror since the instrument park is optimized to benefit from this upgrade. Several novel adaptive correction modes are also envisioned making use of a sophisticated Laser launch facility that will provide 4 Laser artificial guide stars for  wavefront sensing.

The whole facility will provide new and exciting scientific capabilities to the VLT.

Contents

• Introduction & Site Roadmap
• AOF Schedule
• AOF Team
  

Introduction and Site Roadmap

The AO Dept. had initiated several preliminary studies in 2003-04 for the VLT second generation instruments. These projects followed parallel paths until the begining of 2005 when they were united under the "hat": AO Facility.  The project aims at upgrading one VLT 8 m unit telescope into an adaptive telescope. Instruments and corresponding AO modules are defined in order to benefit fully from the added potential of an adaptive telescope. A key ingredient to the success of this project is the integrated development of these complex systems together under a single management structure in order to exploit the full potential it can offer. Equally important to the AO Dept. is drawing from its previous experience with first generation AO module on Paranal. The global success of this effort was largely due to a thorough testing and characterisation phase in Europe of all the AO modules prior to their delivery in Paranal. Similarly it is envisioned for the AO Facility to define a sophisticated Test Bench that will be used in Europe to test both AO modules in the laboratory along with the DSM.

Figure 1: The Adaptive Optics Facility consists in an upgrade of one of the 4 VLT unit telescopes into and adaptive telescope. This means that the telescope optical train includes a deformable mirror, in this case the secondary. A new M2-Unit will be built altogether leaving the original Dornier M2-Unit as a spare for the other 3 UT's. Four laser guide stars are required for the correction modes envisioned. They are launched from four separate smaller telescopes located on the 8m centerpiece. The laser clean room is re-cycled to equip this laser guide star facility (an upgrade of UT4 is planned). Two Adaptive Optics modules on the opposite Nasmyth platforms will feed two optimized instruments for AO correction: GALACSI and MUSE on one Nasmyth and GRAAL and Hawk-I on the opposite one.  All systems will be tested and characterized in Europe with a sophisticated Test Bench called ASSIST.

The AO Facility includes an Adaptive Secondary developed by an italian consortium composed of Microgate, ADS Intl and the Osservatorio Astrofisico de Arcetri. This consortium also developed the MMT and LBT adaptive secondaries. The ESO LGS group elaborates the design of a 4LGSF a facility providing 4 laser guide stars for wavefront sensing of the various AO modules. The AO Dept. presently designs the AO module for Hawk-I and MUSE respectively called GRAAL (GRound layer Adaptive Optics Assisted by Lasers) and GALACSI (). Both AO modules are similar in design, host 4 Wavefront Sensors (WFS) and will offer new novel AO correction mode like SCAO (Single Conjugate Adaptive Optics), GLAO (Ground Layer Adaptive Optics) and  LTAO (Laser Tomography Adaptive Optics). Hawk-I is a wide-field Infrared Imager developed by the Instrumentation Division (IR Group) which is now in the integration stage. MUSE is a Integral Field visible spectrograph developed by a consortium led by the Observatoire de Lyon (CRAL). SPARTA is an AO Dept. led effort to develop a real-time computer platform for the next generation of AO systems of which GRAAL and GALACSI will be the first to make use of.

Color Legend:

* At the time of this writing it is planned to upgrade UT4 into an AO Facility. SINFONI is the latest of the ESO 1st generation instrument installed on this UT. It would remain available to the community after the upgrade of UT4 but the ESO Instrumentation Division has been given the mandate to define a replacement for SINFONI that would complete harmoniously the AO Facility.

Development Schedule

Milestones	GRAAL	GALACSI	DSM	4LGSF	ASSIST
AOF Green Light	December 2005
PDR	Jan '07	Apr. '07	Oct. '06	June '07	Jan. '07
FDR	Jan. '08	June '08	Aug. '07	June '08	Oct. '07
End of MAI	Oct. '09	Avr. '10	May '09		Oct. '08
PAE	Feb. '11	July '11	Feb. '10	July '10	Oct. '09
End of Commissioning	Dec. '11	Feb. '12	Nov. '11	Feb. '11	--

Design Team

ESO Development Team (Management Structure)
Project Manager	Robin Arsenault	rarsenau@eso.org
System Engineers	Stefan Stroebele Sylvain Oberti	sstroebe@eso.org soberti@eso.org
Project Scientist	TBD
Mechanics	Ralf Conzelmann	rconzelm@eso.org
Optics	Bernard Delabre	bdelabre@eso.org
Electronics	Michel Duchateau Andreas Jost	mduchate@eso.org ajost@eso.org
Software	Robert Donaldson,  Mario Kiekebusch Birger Gustafsson	rdonalds@eso.org mkiekebu@eso.org bgustafs@eso.org
Real Time Computer (SPARTA)	Enrico Fedrigo Rob Donaldson Christian Soenke	efedrigo@eso.org rdonalds@eso.org csoenke@eso.org
Simulations	Miska Lelouarn	lelouarn@eso.org
Opto-Mechanical Integration/Mechanics	Sebastien Tordo	stordo@eso.org
Interfaces & Operation	Gerd Hudepohl	ghudepoh@eso.org
4 LGSF	Wolfgang Hackenberg	whackenb@eso.org
Externally Contracted
DSM Development	MicroGate, (Italy), R. Biasi ADS Intl, (Italy), P. Lazzarini OAA (Italy), A. Riccardi
ASSIST	University of Leiden, R. Stuik

Send comments to <rarsenau@eso.org> Last update: July 15th, 2006