Projects
Here are some of the projects we are working on. We thank our clients for giving us the opportunity to work on these incredible systems.
W.M. Keck Observatory Real-Time Computer (RTC)
A GPU based RTC for natural and laser guide Star at the summit of Mauna Kea. The twin 10-meters Keck Telescopes are the most powerful visible and infrared eyes on earth.
Keck All-sky Adaptive Optics (KAPA)
W.M. Keck Observatory recently started the upgrade of their laser system to provide laser tomography adaptive optics system to improve the performance of the K1 telescope
UC Santa Cruz Extreme AO Lab (SEAL)
The Santa cruz Extreme AO Lab (SEAL) is a visible-wavelength testbed designed to advance the state of the art in wavefront control for high contrast imaging on large, segmented, ground-based telescopes. SEAL provides multiple options for simulating atmospheric turbulence, including rotating phase plates and a custom Meadowlark spatial light modulator that delivers phase offsets of up to 6pi at 635nm
Observatoire de Haute Provence PAPYRUS
PAPYRUS is an adaptive optics bench setup on the telescope T152, 1.52m diameter, of Observatoire de Haute Provence (OHP, France) since June 2022. This bench has been designed for research and development in adaptive optics and educational purposes. However it gained in maturity since its first light and is now evolving towards an instrumental platform, including infrared capacities (imager, fiber injection module). So equipped, the bench will mature concepts and techniques coupling adaptive optics and their associated instruments, for future systems such as the 2.5m PROVIDENCE system that will also be located at OHP or for the HARMONI instrument to be installed at ELT. PAPYRUS features a four-sided pyramid in front of an EMCCD camera working in broadband visible and a deformable mirror made of 241 actuators.
AOB-WAN
Adaptive Optics Bernch for Wide and Narrow fields
Durham Adaptive Optics
Durham Adaptive Optics (DAO) is a powerful and flexible software solution for adaptive optics systems. DAO enables real-time correction of wavefront distortions caused by atmospheric turbulence and optical aberrations, improving the image quality of ground-based telescopes. DAO takes a hardware-agnostic approach to processing pipelines, supporting distributed heterogeneous compute environments. Its high flexibility allows seamless integration with various hardware systems and configurations, accommodating different wavefront sensors (such as Shack-Hartmann and pyramid sensors), actuators (including deformable mirrors, tip-tilt mirrors, and spatial light modulators), and other components.