SIGHT: A compact adaptive optics technology demonstrator for all-sky panchromatic optical/infrared spectroscopy

该项目将开发一种技术，通过提高大型研究望远镜的灵敏度来增强它们的性能。利用激光源探测地球不断变化的大气，该项目将展示一种校正大气湍流效应的新方法。这种效应与人们在晚上看星星时看到的东西有关，他们看到星星在不断变化。为了进行这种校正，一种新的光学元件和算法将足够快地检测到这种变化，以便实时补偿。此外，系统将被冷却以减少背景红外辐射。这些优点将提高现有和新的研究望远镜的科学性。在海尔望远镜（SIGHT）上使用导星锐化图像是一种激光导星（LGS）自适应光学（AO）演示器，可以在整个天空中实现全色可见光到红外图像的补偿。SIGHT的创新之处包括展示了一种新型的高动态范围开环LGS光学微分波前传感器（ODWFS），将AO科学继电器冷却至-30℃以降低热背景，在5米望远镜上自动化LGS观测，并展示了适用于许多AO和光谱应用的紧凑光学设计。与之前的LGS系统不同，SIGHT将在大波长范围内锐化图像，从紫外大气截止到近红外。该系统将优化全色光谱仪的光学和操作效率，为微弱、紧凑物体的可见观测提供高达4倍的速度优势。因此，SIGHT解决了一个需要，以提高快速，中等分辨率的分类发现瞬变物体与Zwicky瞬变设施（ZTF）和鲁宾天文台使用高效的光谱仪。采用基于LGS传感的高阶波前校正，SIGHT可以在不需要自然导星（NGS）进行倾斜校正的情况下显着锐化图像。然而，当NGS可用时，SIGHT性能进一步提高。这些技术在未来的多目标光谱仪（MOS）和大型望远镜的先进AO架构中的适用性将得到证明。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This project will develop a technique to enhance large research telescopes by improving their sensitivity. Utilizing a laser source to probe Earth's ever-evolving atmosphere, the project will demonstrate a new way of correcting for atmospheric turbulence effects. Such effects are related to what people can see when they look at a star at night and see it constantly changing. To perform this correction, a novel optical element and algorithms will detect such changes quickly enough to allow for compensation in real time. Additionally, the system will be cooled to reduce background infrared radiation. These advantages will enhance the science for existing and new research telescopes.Sharpening Images using Guidestars at the Hale Telescope (SIGHT) is a laser guide star (LGS) adaptive optics (AO) demonstrator enabling panchromatic visible-to-infrared image compensation over the entire sky. SIGHT innovates by, demonstrating a novel high-dynamic-range Open loop LGS Optical Differentiator Wavefront Sensor (ODWFS), cooling an AO science relay to -30C for thermal background reduction, automating LGS observations on a 5-meter telescope, and demonstrating a compact optical design appropriate for many AO and spectrographic applications. Unlike prior LGS system, SIGHT will sharpen images over a large range of wavelengths, from the ultraviolet atmospheric cut-off to the near-IR. The system will optimize panchromatic spectrograph optical and operational efficiency, providing a factor of up to 4x speed advantage for visible observations of faint, compact objects. SIGHT thus addresses a need, to improve rapid, moderate-resolution classification of transient objects discovered with the Zwicky Transient Facility (ZTF) and the Rubin Observatory using efficient spectrographs. Applying high-order wavefront corrections based on LGS sensing, SIGHT sharpens images significantly without needing a natural guide star (NGS) for tip-tilt correction. However, when an NGS is available, SIGHT performance is further improved. The applicability of these techniques to future multi-object spectrographs (MOS) and advance AO architectures for large telescopes will be demonstrated.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.