Markus E. Kasper

Personal:

Education:

PhD, October 2000:	Ruprecht-Karls-University Heidelberg
Dipl. Phys., July 1997:	Ruprecht-Karls-University Heidelberg
Abitur, June 1991:	Augustinerschule Friedberg, Hessen

Employments:

1997 August - 2000 October: Ph.D. student, Max-Planck-Institut für Astronomie, Heidelberg, Germany

2000 November - Present: AO Engineer at European Southern Observatory, Garching, Germany

Skills:

Languages:	Mother tongue is German. Fluency in spoken and written English. Working knowledge of French. Learning Spanish.
Instrumentation:	Experience in astronomical instrumentation and optics from working on the MPIA Shack-Hartmann adaptive optics system with a laser guide star ALFA and the ESO Curvature AO system for the VLT interferometer MACAO.
Computer:	Programming experience in C, Pascal, BASIC and Mathematica. Familiarity with UNIX, DOS, Windows, and Mac OS. Can handle MS-Office (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Project). Image and Signal Processing in IDL and Matlab.

Memberships:

Deutsche physikalische Gesellschaft

Current Duties, Scientific Interests:

Duties at the ESO include assembly, integration, and tests of the adaptive optics systems built for the VLT interferometer on Cerro Paranal, Chile. Working on wavefront reconstruction and compensation techniques with Shack-Hartmann and Curvature Sensors, both theoretically and in practice. Adaptive Optics with Laser Guide Stars. Research in star formation, above all on systems with infrared companions.

Publications

Ph.D. Thesis

• Optimization of an adaptive optics system and its application to high-resolution imaging spectroscopy of T Tauri [pdf]

Diploma Thesis:

• Das astronomische Seeing - Theorie, Methodik, Messungen

in Refereed Journals:

• Spatially resolved imaging spectroscopy of T Tauri
  M. E. Kasper, M. Feldt, T. Herbst, S. Hippler, T. Ott, L. E. Tacconi-Garman, accepted for publication in ApJ, 2002
• ALFA: adaptive optics for the Calar Alto observatory,
  M. E. Kasper, D.P. Looze, S. Hippler, T. Herbst, A. Glindemann, A. Wirth, Experimental Astronomy 10, 04/2000, 49-73
• The science potential of ALFA: adaptive optics with natural and laser guide stars,
  R.I. Davies, W. Hackenberg, T. Ott, A. Eckart, S. Rabien, S. Anders, S. Hippler, M. E. Kasper, P. Kalas, A. Quirrenbach, A. Glindemann, A&A sup. 138, 1999, p. 345-353
• Near-Infrared Adaptive Optics Observations of Galaxies in the Abell 262 Cluster
  ALFA-Team, to be submitted to ApJ
• ALFA: The MPIA/MPE Laser Guide Star AO System
  A. Eckart, S. Hippler, A. Glindemann, W. Hackenberg, A. Quirrenbach, P. Kalas, M. E. Kasper, R. Davies, T. Ott, S. Rabien, D. Butler, H.-C. Holstenberg, D. Looze, R.-R. Rohloff, K. Wagner, N. Wilnhammer, D. Hamilton, S. Beckwith, R. Genzel, Experimental Astronomy accepted
• The ALFA Laser and Analysis Tools
  S. Rabien, T. Ott, W. Hackenberg, A. Eckart, R. Davies, M. E. Kasper, Experimental Astronomy 10, 04/2000, 75-88
• The ALFA laser guide star: operation and results
  R. Davies, A. Eckart, W. Hackenberg, T. Ott, D. Butler, M. E. Kasper and A. Quirrenbach, Experimental Astronomy 10, 04/2000, 103-121

in Conference Proceedings:

• Performance improvements of of Shack-Hartmann sensors with keystone design lenslet arrays
  M. E. Kasper, S. Hippler, S. Rabien, SPIE conf. Astron. Telescopes and Instrumentation, San Diego, 2001 [pdf]
• A practical approach to modal basis selection and wavefront estimation
  M. E. Kasper, D. P. Looze, S. Hippler, M. Feldt, A. R. Weiß, A. Glindemann, R. Davies, SPIE conf. Astron. Telescopes and Instrumentation, Munich, 2000 [ps, pdf]
• Increasing the sensitivity of a Shack-Hartmann Sensor,
  M. E. Kasper, D. P. Looze, S. Hippler, R. Davies, A. Glindemann, Wavefront sensing, Canterbury, 1999 [ps, pdf]
• T Tauri S confirmed as a binary star,
  R. Köhler, M. E. Kasper, T. Herbst, IAU Symp. 200, eds. B. Reipurth & H. Zinnecker, Potsdam, 2000
• ALFA & 3D: integral field spectroscopy with adaptive optics,
  R. I. Davies, M. E. Kasper, N. Thatte, M. Tezca, L. E. Tacconi-Garman, S. Anders, T. Herbst, SPIE conf. Astron. Telescopes and Instrumentation, Munich, 2000
• The Impact of Adaptive Optics in Star Formation Research,
  M. Feldt, M. E. Kasper, F. Eisenhauer, S. Hippler, SPIE conf. Astron. Telescopes and Instrumentation, Munich, 2000
• Adaptive Optics with Laser Guide Stars,
  T. Ott, A. Eckart, S. Hippler, W. Hackenberg, S. Rabien, M. E. Kasper, R. Davies, ASP conf. ser., 1999
• ALFA: The MPIA/MPE Adaptive Optics with a Laser for Astronomy Project,
  S. Hippler, A. Glindemann, M. E. Kasper, P. Kalas, R.-R. Rohloff, K. Wagner, D.P. Looze, W. Hackenberg, SPIE Proc. 3353, 44-55
• First Observational Results from ALFA with Natural and Laser Guide Stars,
  R. Davies, W. Hackenberg, T. Ott, S. Rabien, S. Hippler, M. E. Kasper, P. Kalas, K. Wagner, R.-R. Rohloff, in Astronomy with Adaptive Optics, eds. Bonaccini, ESO Proc. 56, 153-, 1998

in preparation ;-):

• Optimal wavefront reconstruction in closed loop adaptive optics
• AO long-slit spectroscopy of GG Tau

Talks:

• A practical approach to modal basis selection and wavefront estimation, SPIE conf. Astron. Telescopes and Instrumentation, Munich, 2000
• Increasing the sensitivity of a Shack-Hartmann Sensor, Wavefront sensing, Canterbury, 1999
• ALFA; Status, Modal Control & Outlook 2000, Calar Alto Kolloquium, Heidelberg, 1999
• Wavefront reconstruction and compensation in ALFA, ESO/OSA conf. Astronomy with Adaptive Optics, Sonthofen, 1998

Public writing:

• Den ganzen Himmel scharfgestellt, Sterne und Weltraum 11/2000
• Neue Nachbarn der Sonne, Sterne und Weltraum 8/1999
• Knapp vorbei..., Sterne und Weltraum 8/1999
• Feinstruktur in Sonnenflecken, Sterne und Weltraum 10/1998
• Erstes Bild einer Gasscheibe um einen AGN, Sterne und Weltraum 7/1998
• Schwarzes Doppelloch, Sterne und Weltraum 12/1997
• Ungeklaertes Aufleuchten, Sterne und Weltraum 7/1997
• Die Rotation des Erdkerns, Sterne und Weltraum 4/1997
• Jupiters feiner Ring, Sterne und Weltraum 12/1996