During 2014-2016, the Laser guide star (LGS) adaptive optics (AO) system observation campaign has been carried out on Lijiang 1.8 meter telescope. During the campaign, two generation LGS AO systems have been developed and installed. In 2014, a long-pulsed solid Sodium prototype laser with 20W@400Hz, a beam transfer optical (BTO) system, and a laser launch telescope (LLT) with 300mm diameter were mounted onto the telescope and moved with telescope azimuth journal. At the same time, a 37-elements compact LGS AO system had been mounted on the Bent-Cassegrain focus and got its first light on observing HIP43963 (mV= 8.18mv) and reached Sr=0.27 in J Band after LGS AO compensation. In 2016, the solid Sodium laser has been upgrade to stable 32W@800Hz while D2a plus D2b repumping is used to increase the photon return, and a totally new LGS AO system with 164-elements Deformable Mirror, Linux Real Time Controller, inner closed loop Tip/tilt mirror, Multiple-PMT tracking detector is established and installed on the telescope. And the throughput for the BTO/LLT is improved nearly 20%. The campaign process, the performance of the two LGS AO systems especially the latter one, the characteristics of the BTO/LLT system and the result are present in this paper.
An adaptive optics system (AOS), which consists of a 73-element piezoelectric deformable secondary mirror (DSM), a 9x9 Shack-Hartmann wavefront sensor and a real time controller has been integrated on the 1.8m telescope at the Gaomeigu site of Yunnan Astronomical Observatory, Chinese Academy of Sciences. Compared to the traditional AOS on Coude focus, the DSM AOS adopts much less reflections and consequently restrains the thermal noise and increases the energy transmitting to the system. Before the first on-sky test, this system has been demonstrated in the laboratory by compensating the simulated atmospheric turbulence generated by a rotating phase screen. A new multichannel-modulation calibration method which is used to measure the DSM based AOS interaction matrix is proposed. After integration on the 1.8m telescope, the closed-loop compensation of the atmospheric turbulence with the DSM based AOS is achieved, and the first light results from the on-sky experiment are reported.
Sodium laser guide star is an ideal source for astronomical adaptive optics system correcting wave-front aberration caused by atmospheric turbulence. However, the cost and difficulties to manufacture a compact high quality sodium laser with power higher than 20W is not a guarantee that the laser will provide a bright enough laser guide star due to the physics of sodium atom in the atmosphere. It would be helpful if a prediction tool could provide the estimation of photon generating performance for arbitrary laser output formats, before an actual laser were designed. Based on rate equation, we developed a Monte Carlo simulation software that could be used to predict sodium laser guide star generating performance for arbitrary laser formats. In this paper, we will describe the model of our simulation, its implementation and present comparison results with field test data.
In 2013, a serial sky test has been held on 1.8 meter telescope in Yunnan observation site after 2011-2012 Laser guide star photon return test. In this test, the long-pulsed sodium laser and the launch telescope have been upgraded, a smaller and brighter beacon has been observed. During the test, a sodium column density lidar and atmospheric coherence length measurement equipment were working at the same time. The coupling efficiency test result with the sky test layout, data processing, sodium beacon spot size analysis, sodium profile data will be presented in this paper.
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