Development of a device for measuring turbulence in the air above telescopes that observe the sun

在望远镜观测点上方的不同高度测量大气中的湍流，使天文学家能够纠正这种湍流产生的图像模糊。这种模糊现象发生在夜间观测恒星和星系时，也发生在白天观测离地球最近的恒星——太阳时。该提案的首席研究员（PI）将与一名研究生和一名博士后学者一起，建造一个便携式装置，可用于测量任何天文台上方的湍流“剖面”。该仪器将专门用于观测太阳的望远镜。该装置将在萨克拉门托峰和基特峰天文台的太阳望远镜上进行测试，并最终在美国位于夏威夷的Daniel K. Inouye太阳望远镜（DKIST）。PI所在的机构加州州立大学北岭分校（CSUN）是一所本科教学机构，内部支持适度的研究；它也是一个西班牙裔服务机构（HSI），因为有很大一部分代表性不足的少数民族本科生服务。PI的目标是开发一种便携式观测剖面仪，用于太阳观测站。该装置将测量大气湍流的剖面，作为观测点上方高度（最高30公里）的函数。该仪器包括现成的组件和两个10厘米的小型望远镜，可以运送到任何太阳天文台。了解大气观测条件对太阳自适应光学（AO）系统的性能至关重要。现有的观测剖面仪技术使用直径1.2米或更大的大型望远镜，需要几个月的时间才能观测到天空。因此，本文提出的低成本便携式系统应该可以缓解其中的一些问题。目前，人们对世界上许多太阳望远镜站点的白天观测剖面知之甚少。一个原型装置已经建成并进行了测试；新仪器需要少量资金来购买机械部件和两台科学CMOS相机，组装设备，开发相关软件，最后在萨克拉门托峰和夏威夷的DKIST站点测试设置。

Measuring the turbulence in the atmosphere at different altitudes or "heights" above telescope observing sites allows astronomers to correct for the blurring of images that this turbulence produces. This blurring occurs when observing stars and galaxies at night, but also when observing the star nearest to the earth, the Sun, during the day. The principal investigator (PI) of this proposal, along with a graduate student and a post-doctoral scholar, will build a portable unit that can be used to measure the turbulence "profile" above any observatory. The instrument will be used specifically with telescopes that observe the sun. The device will be tested at solar telescopes at the Sacramento Peak and Kitt Peak observatories, and eventually at the U.S.'s newest facility, the Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope, DKIST, in Hawaii. The PI's institution, California State University Northridge (CSUN), is an undergraduate teaching institution with modest internal support for research; it is also a Hispanic Serving Institution (HSI) due to the large fraction of under-represented minority undergraduates served.The PI aims to develop a portable seeing profiler for use at solar observatories. The device will measure the profile of atmospheric turbulence as a function of altitude (up to 30 km) above the observing site. The instrument comprises off-the-shelf components and two small, 10 cm telescopes that can be transported to any solar observatory. Knowledge of the atmospheric seeing conditions is crucial to the performance of solar adaptive optics (AO) systems. Existing seeing profiler techniques use large telescopes with diameters of 1.2 meters or more and need access to the sky over many months. The low-cost portable system proposed here should thus alleviate some of these issue. Currently, relatively little is known about the daytime seeing profile on many of the world's solar telescope sites. A prototype device has already been built and tested; for the new instrument modest funding is requested to purchase mechanical parts and two scientific CMOS cameras, to assemble the equipment, to develop the associated software, and finally to test the set-up at Sacramento Peak and at the DKIST site in Hawaii.