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Adaptive Optics and Astronomy. Cabrillo College Sandra M. Faber 7 March 2001. What is the CfAO?. The CfAO is an NSF Science and Technology Center We started November 1999 We have a 5-year lifetime, extendable to 10 years The CfAO is a multi-institutional center
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Adaptive Optics and Astronomy Cabrillo College Sandra M. Faber 7 March 2001
What is the CfAO? • The CfAO is an NSF Science and Technology Center • We started November 1999 • We have a 5-year lifetime, extendable to 10 years • The CfAO is a multi-institutional center • Headquarters at UC Santa Cruz • UC Berkeley, UC San Diego, UCLA • Caltech, Chicago, Rochester, Houston, Indiana, Lawrence Livermore Lab • Industrial partners: Lucent, Bausch & Lomb, Rockwell, and others • The CfAO contains about 200 faculty, postdocs, graduate students, and industrial researchers • We have a major outreach program aimed at attracting minority students into math and science smf
Basic idea of AO Wavefront corrector Aberrated wavefront Corrected wavefront Wavefront sensor Wavefront control computer smf
PSF Changes with Pupil Size 1 mm 2 mm 3 mm 4 mm pupil images followed by psfs for changing pupil size 5 mm 6 mm 7 mm smf
Why Correct the Eye’s Optics? Perfect Eye Aberrated Eye smf
No Adaptive Optics With Adaptive Optics JW right eye 1 deg eccentricity image wavelength = 550 nm April 21, 1997 10 arc min (48.6 µm)
Retinal Imaging – Basic Science Scale bar = 5 µm First images of the trichromatic photoreceptor mosaic in the human eye (Roorda and Williams, Nature, 1999)
Adaptive optics provides a clear improvement in retinal image quality Point Spread Function Retinal Image in White Light Wave Aberration Retinal Image at 550nm Before adaptive optics: 1 deg After adaptive optics: YY 6.8 mm pupil
Schematic of Astronomical AO System Telescope Deformable mirror Tip-tilt mirror Beam splitter Wavefront sensor Tip-tilt sensor Beam splitter Imaging camera smf
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Neptune at 1.65 microns Without adaptive optics With adaptive optics 2.3 arc sec May 24, 1999 June 28, 1999 smf