Within an hour of opening the Shane mirror cover on April 12, we had the telescope aligned into the AO system and closed the loop on a bright star, Phi Geminorum.
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| First, the background sky is used to align the telescope pupil with the AO pupil. Reni is happy about it. |
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| This is "on-sky" closed-loop. Lots of Airy rings on Phi Geminorum! |
See the
first light photo album for pictures and movies of the events, which include mounting to the telescope, videos of the telescope pointing and instrument rotating, first light activity in the control room.
First light images and tests included
- closed loop images of a bright star
- offload of tip/tilt to telescope guiding (worked like a charm, the Alpao woofer tilt range is adequate between offloads)
- a closely spaced binary star pair - overlapping Airy rings!
- a spectrum of a star, and another after accurate nodding along the slit
- closed loop PSFs with a succession of dimmer magnitude guide stars (in NGS mode)
- closed loop PSF performance at several science wavelengths from 1 to 2.2 microns wavelength
- image of a star cluster (M92), nodded around the field - testing field of view and camera distortion - this is a beautiful demonstration of resolution change from AO off to AO on
- a planetary nebula (IC 4593) - testing imaging of diffuse structure
- the minor planet Ceres - test of resolution and low contrast detail
- closed loop on the laser guide star (but no science images yet; we still need to commission the tip/tilt sensor's closed-loop software, which will happen in our next engineering run)
- outgoing laser wavefront control experiments with prototype high power coated MEMS DMs from IrisAO
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| The ShaneAO commissioning team in the 120" control room |
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| Stars in the M92 globular cluster |
Link for further information, pictures, and presentations on ShaneAO:
