Advanced Instrumentation for Astronomy

自适应光学（AO）实验室，在维多利亚大学，是一个世界级的研究计划的参与者（自2005年以来）；30米望远镜项目TMT项目是加拿大和美国之间的合作项目，旨在设计和建造下一代地面光学望远镜。美国的合作伙伴包括加州理工学院、摩尔基金会和加州大学。加拿大的合作伙伴是国家研究委员会和ACURA（加拿大天文学大学研究协会）。与地面望远镜相结合的AO系统的基本原理是消除来自遥远物体的光穿过地球大气层时产生的像差。对于大型光学望远镜，自适应光学是必不可少的组成部分。AO系统的关键部件是：检测光像差的波前传感器（WFS）；可变形镜（DM），通过改变形状来消除像差；并且，实时控制系统可以根据波前传感器数据优化调整可变形镜的致动器。对于像TMT这样的大型仪器，没有单一的可变形镜技术可以提供足够多的驱动器（数千个），每个驱动器都有足够大的行程（几十微米）。因此，维多利亚大学实验室正在研究一个由两个可变形镜（dm）协同工作组成的AO概念。

The adaptive optics (AO) laboratory, at the University of Victoria, is a participant (since 2005) in a world-class research program; the thirty meter telescope (TMT) project. The TMT project is a partnership, between Canada and the USA, to design and build the next generation, ground-based optical telescope. The US partners are comprised of Caltech, the Moore Foundation and the University of California. The Canadian partners are the National Research Council and ACURA (Association of Canadian Universities for Research in Astronomy). The rationale for an AO system, coupled to a ground-based telescope, is to remove the image aberrations created when light, from a distant object, passes through the earth's atmosphere. For very large optical telescopes, adaptive optics is an essential component. The key components in an AO system are the: wave-front sensor (WFS) that detects the optical aberration; deformable mirror (DM) that changes shape to remove the aberration; and, a real-time control system that optimally adjusts the actuators, of the deformable mirror, in response to the wavefront sensor data. For a massive instrument, such as TMT, there is no single deformable mirror technology that can provide a sufficiently large number of actuators (order of thousands) that each has a large enough stroke (tens of microns). Therefore, the UVic laboratory is investigating an AO concept consisting of two deformable mirrors (DMs) working cooperatively.