AT THE WORLDS LARGEST TELESCOPES, ASTRONOMERS ARE INCREASINGLY

ABLE TO CANCEL OUT THE BLURRING CAUSED BY EARTHS ATMOSPHERE

AND VIEW THE UNIVERSE ALMOST AS SHARPLY AS IF THE TELESCOPES WERE

IN OUTER SPACE. BUT ITS NOT EASY. BY GOVERT SCHILLING

On Friday, November 26, 1999,

Scott Acton saw an erupting volcano.
You might think thats no big deal if you Acton is a member of the Keck Adaptive
live where Acton does, near the volcanoes Optics Team. Since the Keck II telescope
of Hawaii. But this one erupted on anoth- achieved AO first light on February 5,
er world, 620 million kilometers away. The 1999, the system has been used to study a
glowing eruption appeared as small as the variety of astronomical objects, demon-
period at the end of this sentence seen strating its enormous potential. On No-
from a distance of two kilometers. And vember 26th of that year Shrinivas Kulkar-
most remarkable of all, the observation ni (Caltech) was about to observe the close
was made through high cirrus clouds. companion of the dwarf star Gliese 569,
Welcome to the world of adaptive op- but cirrus clouds above Mauna Kea made
tics (AO). After years of promise and de- this impossible. Shri decided to go drink
velopment, AO is revolutionizing ground- some coffee with a colleague, says Acton,
based astronomy at many of the worlds who was in the Keck II dome to assist with
largest observatories. It is technologys the AO observations. We wondered if
triumphant answer to an age-old prob- there was anything else we could observe.
lem: the blurring of telescopic images by Jupiter was one of the few objects
atmospheric turbulence, which astronomers call the seeing. By bright enough to show through the clouds, so Acton and his
using elaborate wavefront sensors, fast computers, and rubber colleagues turned the giant telescope to the giant planet and
mirrors that reshape themselves hundreds of times a second, aimed at Io, the innermost of Jupiters large satellites. We
astronomers are able to untwinkle the stars and see almost locked the AO system on Io, he says, and it happened to have
as sharply as if the atmosphere didnt exist. this active volcano! From three near-infrared images, we con-
Since the early 1990s many 4-meter-class telescopes have structed a false-color picture of Io, showing a wealth of surface
been outfitted with AO systems. In the past three years larger details. The smallest markings were just 150 kilometers
telescopes have joined the movement, notably the two 10-meter across. For Acton, bad-night astronomy turned into a miracle.
Keck telescopes, the 8.2-meter Gemini
North reflector, and the 8.3-meter Subaru
telescope, all at Mauna Kea, Hawaii. Soon Above: Jupiters moon Io was 1.2 arcseconds wide when the Keck II telescope and adaptive-optics
AO will be available to astronomers at all system imaged it through thin clouds on November 26, 1999. A hot volcanic eruption stands out on
of the worlds major observatories. Mean- Ios limb in this three-color infrared image. Dozens of surface features can be identified here with
while, optical engineers are devising ways the help of views from the Voyager and Galileo spacecraft. Courtesy Keck Adaptive Optics Group.
to broaden AO techniques to make them Right: Making an artificial star. An adaptive-optics system needs to watch a bright guidestar in its
work in more situations and produce narrow field of view to measure atmospheric distortions. If no bright star is handy, the Calar Alto
wider fields of view than they do now. Observatory in Spain can put one there. A powerful laser on the side of the observatorys 3.5-meter
With a little luck, these efforts will ulti- telescope excites sodium atoms about 90 kilometers up. The sodium glows like a pinpoint as seen
mately open the way to a new generation by the telescope. The adaptive-optics system measures the atmospheric distortions of this pin-
of 25- to 100-meter ground-based tele- point and cancels them out, sharpening the view of the universe beyond. (On this particular night,
scopes, something once thought impossi- the laser beam was stopped by a layer of thin clouds.) Courtesy Max Planck Institute for Astronomy
ble (S&T: August 2000, page 52). and Extraterrestrial Physics.

30 October 2001 Sky & Telescope 2001 Sky Publishing Corp. All rights reserved.
2001 Sky Publishing Corp. All rights reserved.
 Back into Focus ter than an amateurs backyard 10-inch.
When Galileo Galilei caught his first glimpses of the Jovian At least not until recently. Adaptive optics can take a
satellites almost four centuries ago, he could hardly have imag- smeary, seeing-confused mess of a star image and put it back
ined that a 300-ton descendant of his small telescope would together, nearly achieving diffraction-limited perfection by
resolve surface features on them. Galileos homemade tele- optically counteracting each and every atmospheric distortion
scope had a very poor lens only 4.4 centimeters (1.7 inches) in of the stars light at every moment.
diameter, and he couldnt see details smaller than about 10
arcseconds wide the angle subtended by a dime 300 meters
away. For instance, Galileo couldnt resolve Saturns rings.
If Galileos lens had been perfect, it would have resolved de-
tails 3 arcseconds wide the theoretical angular resolution of
a lens 4.4 cm wide. A telescopes resolution is inversely propor-
tional to its aperture, so a 13-cm instrument resolves details as
small as 1 arcsecond, while a 130-cm has a theoretical resolu-
tion of 0.1 arcsecond. So why is it remarkable that the 10-
meter Keck II should see markings on Io? With its aperture,
the telescope ought to resolve details as fine as 0.013 arcsecond.
If Keck were in orbit or on the Moon, it might. But as every
telescope user knows too well, the Earths atmosphere wreaks
havoc with highly magnified images. Air turbulence blurs the
heavens so that no telescope, whatever its size, can resolve de-
tails smaller than something like 0.5 arcsecond, even on

MAX PLANCK INSTITUTE FOR ASTRONOMY (2)

mountaintops chosen for the best seeing. In terms of angular
resolution, the worlds biggest telescopes dont do much bet-

Right: The Calar Alto 3.5-meter telescope with the guidestar laser
(the narrower of the two black tubes) mounted on its side. Below:
The ALFA adaptive-optics system (red box) and an infrared camera
(golden canister) mounted at the focal plane of the Calar Alto reflec-
tor. ALFA was the first adaptive-optics system to use a laser guidestar
for regular astronomical observations.

32 October 2001 Sky & Telescope 2001 Sky Publishing Corp. All rights reserved.
EVERYONE AGREES THAT GROUND-BASED OPTICAL ASTRONOMY HAS NO ROOM TO GROW
WITHOUT ADAPTIVE OPTICS. SAYS FRANOIS RIGAUT OF THE GEMINI OBSERVATORY, WITHOUT
AO, BUILDING A NEW GENERATION OF VERY LARGE TELESCOPES MAKES NO SENSE AT ALL.
First focus: Distorted incoming
The idea harks back to the early 1950s, when Horace Bab- raw star images light wave
cock of the Hale Observatories in California first described the
principle. But it was beyond the technical possibilities of his
time. Only in the late 1980s was a prototype AO system in- Adaptive-Optics
stalled at the 3.6-meter telescope of the European Southern System
Observatory at Cerro La Silla in Chile. At that time, most de-
velopments in the field were being carried out in secret by
military agencies, mainly the U.S. Strategic Defense Initiative.
In May 1991, after the end of the Cold War, U.S. military AO High-speed
research was declassified and shared with astronomers world- tip-tilt mirror

or
at
wide. Over the past decade near-infrared AO systems have be-

tu
Ac
come almost a standard tool at many large observatories,
though using them is far from routine. And everyone agrees
that ground-based optical astronomy has no room to grow Collimator Telescope
Distorted lens
without adaptive optics. Says Franois Rigaut of the Gemini wavefronts

SKY & TELESCOPE DIAGRAM. STAR IMAGES: KECK OBSERVATORY

Observatory, Without AO, building a new generation of very Deformable Beamsplitter
large telescopes makes no sense at all. rubber mirror (dichroic)
Science
Infrared

Ac
camera

tu
Descrambling Starlight Flattened

at
or

Visible
So how does adaptive optics work? The basic idea is pretty wavefronts

simple. As with a coded TV signal coming through a descram-
bler, the blurred image of a star can be descrambled if you
know exactly how the scrambling was done. In other words, at
each instant you have to measure and correct for the effects of
all the atmospheric distortions inside a telescopes very long
line of sight. The distortions arise from tiny temperature dif-
ferences among turbulent air pockets, or cells, ranging in size
from centimeters to meters. All the cells are rapidly blowing
across the telescopes light path, often in different directions at
different altitudes. Each cell acts like a weak lens, slightly mis-
directing the light rays passing through it. The result is a
blurred and rapidly shivering image that typically changes
hundreds of times per second.
To make all the light rays from a distant star line up again, an
AO system must do two things: determine all the distortions at
each moment, and impose their opposites on an optical element
in the telescopes light path. Both the angular size and the rapidi-
ty of the distortions are worse at visual wavelengths than in the
near infrared; this is one principal reason that AO is pursued at
the longer near-infrared wavelengths. (Another is the fact that a
telescopes theoretical resolution is proportional to wavelength.)
JAMES R. GRAHAM / LICK OBSERVATORY / NSF
s
Simple High-order
image-motion corrections
correction
Wavefront-
High-speed sensor
Corrected
processor camera
star image
The basic parts of an adaptive-optics system were envisioned almost a
half century ago, but it took decades to make them work. Light waves
distorted by the atmosphere enter a telescope. Where they come to a
focus, a star at high magnification appears as a distorted, rapidly shim-
mering mess. (The five images here are freeze-frames of a seeing-
distorted star, courtesy Keck Observatory.) Part of the light beam is di-
rected to a wavefront sensor that records the distortions. A high-speed
computer analyzes them and sends corrections to a rubber mirror,
which counter-distorts to cancel them out. The wavefront sensor then
monitors the results. In systems that use a laser guidestar, a separate
tip-tilt mirror is also required to correct for overall image motion.
The optical element the rubber mirror is a thin
glass mirror whose surface can be slightly deformed into com-
plex shapes by tens or even hundreds of piezoelectric crystals
attached to its back. The crystals are tiny actuators: run a small
current through them, and they expand or contract a few mi-

crons. If the tiny deformations of the rubber mirror match

A star before and after the new laser adaptive-optics system was
CENTER FOR ADAPTIVE OPTICS

turned on at Lick Observatorys 3-meter Shane reflector in California.

The infrared freeze-frame at left shows the all-too-familiar look of a
highly magnified star seen through the Earths atmosphere. When
the adaptive-optics system is switched on, the star image sharpens
nearly to the diffraction-limited size it would display if the atmos-
phere didnt exist.

2001 Sky Publishing Corp. All rights reserved. Sky & Telescope October 2001 33
 AS SOON AS THE RUBBER MIRROR HAS THE CORRECT SHAPE, THE SENSOR MEASURES A FLAT
WAVEFRONT AND KNOWS THAT ALL IS WELL UNTIL THE NEXT MILLISECOND OR SO.
(or, more correctly, counter-match) the distortions inflicted by
the atmosphere, the blurring vanishes, and the telescope sees
as if it were in outer space.
But this is easier said than done. The atmospheric distor-
tions have to be measured, and the required voltage for each
actuator has to be calculated and applied, up to hundreds of
times per second.
CULTIVATING AO: The Center for Adaptive Optics
Adaptive optics received a boost in No-
vember 1999 when the Center for Adap-
tive Optics (CfAO) opened at the Univer-
sity of California in Santa Cruz. As one of
the Science and Technology Centers
funded by the U.S. National Science
Foundation (NSF), the center will receive
$20 million over five years to bring AO
techniques to maturity. The center is di-
rected by astronomer Jerry Nelson and
sponsors a wide variety of astronomical
AO science projects.
Apart from developing new astro-
nomical techniques and instruments,
such as actuators and spectrographs, the CfAO also focuses
on AO applications in vision science. Using an AO setup, oph-
thalmologists have corrected for the complex, high-order
aberrations in human eyes. Researchers from the University of
Rochesters Center for Visual Science and the University of
Houston have used the technique to image the living human
retina, seen through the eyes imperfect lens, sharply enough
to easily resolve rod and cone cells and map their arrange-
ments. Test subjects looking outward through the system re-
port seeing more sharply than is possible in nature. Someday
adaptive-optics imagery of a guidestar on your retina may
34 October 2001 Sky & Telescope 2001 Sky Publishing Corp. All rights reserved.
The asteroid 4 Vesta seen by the 10-meter Keck II tele-
scope before and after its adaptive-optics system was
turned on. Details as small as 0.05 arcsecond are re-
solved in the AO image, made at a wavelength of 1.6
microns. Courtesy Keck Adaptive Optics Group.
Strategy One: Fixing Wavefronts
Luckily, the same blurry star that youre trying to
focus can be used to measure the distortions that
have to be corrected, provided its bright enough.
Light waves from a star can be thought of as flat
planes before they hit the atmosphere and as dis-
torted, ripply surfaces by the time they enter the
telescope. The trick is to measure the distortions
of this wavefront all across the telescopes aperture and pass
the information to the rubber mirror.
To do this, a beamsplitter near the telescopes focus diverts
some of the starlight to a wavefront sensor. The most com-
monly used wavefront sensor (the Shack-Hartmann sensor,
named for its inventors) is an array of dozens of tiny lenses,
each with its own image detector. If the light beam had a flat
AUSTIN ROORDA / NSF CENTER FOR ADAPTIVE OPTICS
Above: The living human retina, sharpened by adaptive optics in
the lab. The image at left was photographed through the eyes
cornea and lens, which have small, complex, normally uncor-
rectable errors. For the image at right, an adaptive-optics system
analyzed and compensated for these errors, allowing ophthalmolo-
gists to study individual cone cells clearly for the first time.
yield an ultraprecise map of corrections to be robotically
laser-sculpted into your cornea. The standard for fully cor-
rected human vision could improve from 20/20 to 20/10,
twice as sharp. The Web site for the Center for Adaptive Optics
is at http://www.ucolick.org/~cfao/index.html.

Above: Very fine structure exists between the granules (large, gray convection cells) covering the surface of the Sun, as seen in this image
made with an AO camera on the 76-centimeter R. B. Dunn Solar Telescope at Sacramento Peak, New Mexico. This 6-second exposure, made at
a wavelength of 430.5 nanometers in violet light, resolves details hardly more than 0.1 wide near its center. The bright points mark where
magnetic flux tubes emerge from the Suns interior. They can be studied spectroscopically only with the long exposures that adaptive optics
makes possible for very high resolution images.
wavefront, the light falling on each lenslet would be focused in
the center of each detector. If some parts of the beam are a lit-
tle tilted, the lenslets catching those parts will produce a fo-
cused spot displaced from the center. Measuring these dis-
placements tells the shape of the wavefront.
This information is fed to a high-speed computer, which calcu-
lates the compensations to be sent to the rubber mirror. The rub-
ber mirror is located ahead of the wavefront sensor in the optical
train to create a closed feedback loop: as soon as the rubber mir-
ror has the correct shape, the sensor measures a flat wavefront
and knows that all is well until the next millisecond or so.
Sounds easy. But wait a moment: it only works if the ob-
served object is bright enough. In the
wavefront sensor, the starlight is dis-
tributed across dozens of small lens
Europa
Ganymede 0.5 arcsecond Titan
2001 Sky Publishing Corp. All rights reserved.
A SHARPER SUN
At Sacramento Peak in New Mexico, the 76-centimeter
Dunn Solar Telescope operated by the National Solar Ob-
servatory (NSO) was recently outfitted with an adaptive-
optics system that provides extremely sharp images of
solar granulation. Although the technique differs from
classical AO (obviously, no guidestars are available), the
results are just as stunning. NSO director Stephen Keil says
a resolution of 0.15 arcsecond has been achieved, en-
abling astronomers to follow the evolution of very small
scale structures. By observing in a narrow wavelength
band, solar astronomers can see small magnetic flux tubes
penetrating the Suns surface.
The current AO system, which uses a 24-element Shack-
THOMAS RIMMELE / NOAO
Hartmann sensor, is the precursor for a much more versa-
tile system to be installed on the proposed 4-meter Ad-
vanced Technology Solar Telescope. The ATST, to be
constructed later this decade,has to have adaptive op-
tics, says Keil.
apertures and detectors. Each detector has to be read out hun-
dreds of times per second. So unless the star is quite bright (for
the AO system at the giant Keck telescopes this means magni-
tude 13 or so the visual limit of a 6-inch telescope!), you
quickly run short of photons and theres nothing to measure.
Does this mean adaptive optics can only be applied to bright,
pointlike objects? Not if you use a simple trick. Suppose you
want to observe a very faint galaxy. Its too dim and extended
for the wavefront sensor to register. But if theres a bright star
close to the galaxy, you can use this as a guidestar. Provided
the guidestar is within a few arcseconds of the galaxy, its light
passes through essentially the same air cells. Correct for one,
and you correct for the other and the telescopes main de-
tector (usually a sensitive infrared camera or spectrograph)
will see the faint galaxy with unprecedented sharpness.
The moons of Jupiter and Saturn were practically featureless dots as
seen through Earth-based telescopes before the advent of adaptive
optics. These three-color infrared views were taken with the 10-
meter Keck I telescope on December 13 and 14, 2000, in conditions
of mediocre seeing. Blue indicates wavelengths around 1.2 microns,
green 1.6 microns, and red about 2.2 microns. The smallest Galilean
satellite, Europa, is covered with relatively young ice, while its largest
sibling, Ganymede, is covered with mostly older ice. Titan is shrouded
by its own atmospheric haze at visible wavelengths, but the infrared
view here penetrates to the surface of Saturns largest moon. The
satellites are displayed at the same angular scale. Courtesy Keck
Adaptive Optics Group.
Sky & Telescope October 2001 35
 Strategy Two: Artificial Stars
The problem is that there arent enough 13th-magnitude stars
in the sky. Most interesting targets lack such a bright, close
neighbor. The fraction of the sky available to adaptive optics
the sky coverage, in AO parlance is thus pretty small, typical-
ly less than 1 percent. At near-infrared wavelengths the situation
is a little better, since the guidestar can be a few tens of arcsec-
onds away. Nevertheless, most of the sky remains inaccessible.
The solution is as straightforward as it is challenging. If
theres no guidestar where you want it, put one there yourself.
If you really want to go faint and have a large sky coverage,
you need a laser guidestar, says Geminis Rigaut.
Laser-beacon adaptive optics were developed in the 1980s by
Robert Fugate and his collaborators at the U.S. Air Forces
Starfire Optical Range in New Mexico (S&T: May 1994, page
24, and June 1994, page 20). By using a powerful laser beam
tuned to a wavelength of 589 nanometers, the absorption and
emission wavelength of sodium, telescope operators can make
atoms of sodium near the top of the atmosphere glow. If a 20-

LAWRENCE LIVERMORE NATIONAL LABORATORY / LICK OBSERVATORY (2)

watt laser is focused tightly enough, the result is an artificial,
yellow-orange star glowing at an altitude of some 90 kilome-
ters, the height of a particularly sodium-rich layer. This laser
guidestar is too faint to be seen by the unaided eye, but its
bright enough for the wavefront sensor. The laser beam doesnt
interfere with the observations because it is confined to a sin-
gle wavelength in the visible spectrum, while most adaptive-
optics observations today are done in the infrared.
But now matters really get complicated. First of all, its no
mean feat to build the specialized 20-watt laser. High-
performance, high-quality lasers are still very expensive, says
Rigaut. Acton at Keck Observatory agrees. To get this amount
of power, you have to push everything to the very limit, he
says. For instance, it takes a staggering 50,000 watts of power
input to get the desired laser output. Tuning lasers to the cor- Above and below: The newest laser AO system being tested at Lick Ob-
rect sodium wavelength involves a challenging technique that servatorys 3-meter Shane reflector on Mount Hamilton in California.

36 October 2001 Sky & Telescope 2001 Sky Publishing Corp. All rights reserved.
THE SOLUTION IS AS STRAIGHTFORWARD AS IT IS CHALLENGING. IF THERES NO GUIDESTAR
WHERE YOU WANT IT, PUT ONE THERE YOURSELF. IF YOU REALLY WANT TO GO FAINT AND
HAVE A LARGE SKY COVERAGE, YOU NEED A LASER GUIDESTAR, SAYS GEMINIS RIGAUT.

uses frequency doublers, dyes of liquid ethanol containing or- Fortunately this star can be pretty dim, since its light doesnt
ganic molecules, and dye-master oscillators. Its a miracle of have to be divided into many pieces by the wavefront sensor.
physics that I still have to understand, says Acton. Adaptive optics doesnt look so simple with all these com-
Second, the powerful laser could blind airline pilots and plications. Apart from a wavefront sensor, a high-speed com-
damage detectors on military spy satellites. Astronomers using puter, and a deformable mirror, you now also need a very
adaptive-optics lasers run an infrared camera in tandem that powerful and tricky laser, a camera to spot airplanes, a hotline
automatically shuts the system down when a plane comes by. to NORAD, and a separate aperture-tilt correction loop.
All observing programs, including detailed timing schedules, Little wonder that laser-beacon AO systems are still pretty
have to be submitted to the North American Aerospace De- much in an experimental phase, despite many years of develop-
fense Command (NORAD), which gives the observatory a list ment. Not counting a few military sites, there are just two gen-
of time slots when the laser has to be turned off because a spy uinely working systems. The first was ALFA (Adaptive optics
satellite is passing near the field of view. with a Laser For Astronomy), installed at the 3.5-meter telescope
Last but not least, though a laser guidestar can be used to of Calar Alto Observatory in southern Spain. The second, based
measure the curvature of the wavefront distortions, it cannot on technology developed at Lawrence Livermore National Labo-
be used to measure the images so-called jitter its bulk mo- ratory, has been set up at the 3-meter Shane reflector of Lick
tion from side to side, an effect known as full-aperture tilt. The Observatory at Mount Hamilton, California. Both systems have
problem is that the same large-scale air cells affect the out- had their growing pains. The Lick system is only now being used
going laser beam and the incoming starlight. To measure the for its first science observations. At Keck Observatory, Acton and
full-aperture tilt, its still necessary to use a natural guidestar. his collaborators are installing a laser system of their own.

RUBBER SECONDARIES
All current adaptive-optics systems use a small flexible mirror those in audio speakers; its shape will be controlled by the
to correct the wavefront of the incoming light. Because its same AO feedback loop that normally controls the small rub-
small it has to be placed close to the focus in its own separate ber mirror. With the active mirror part of the telescopes main
equipment package. Of course it would be more straightfor- optics, AO observations should become much more routine.
ward to adjust the shape of the telescopes primary mirror, At the Large Binocular Telescope (LBT) being built on Ari-
but its size and stiffness would make this very difficult. How- zonas Mount Graham, both 8.4-meter units will have adaptive
ever, astronomers and engineers at the University of Arizona secondary mirrors, says Close.This will enable us to use them
in Tucson have developed an AO system that uses a tele- as an interferometer without using any additional optics.
scopes secondary as the rubber mirror.Its working! says Ari-
zonas AO wizard Laird Close.
According to Close, current AO systems lose a great deal of
light because of the many additional mirrors involved in the
packages. Also, the mirrors inevitably emit a little heat, de-
grading infrared observations. Finally, each additional optical
STEWARD OBSERVATORY / CENTER FOR ASTRONOMICAL ADAPTIVE OPTICS

element creates additional scattered light, further decreasing

the signal-to-noise ratio.
A flexible secondary mirror is being installed in the Multi-
ple Mirror Telescope (MMT) at Mount Hopkins near Tucson
(which, despite its name, has been outfitted with a single, 6.5-
meter primary). The new secondary is 60 centimeters in diam-
eter but a mere 2 millimeters thick. It weighs less than a kilo-
gram. The flexible secondary uses 336 voice coils similar to

The first rubber secondary mirror integrated into a large telescope.

The 6.5-meter MMT on Mount Hopkins, Arizona, will use this ultra-
thin, 60-cm secondary backed by 336 magnetic actuators (visible
through the glass because it had not yet been coated).

2001 Sky Publishing Corp. All rights reserved. Sky & Telescope October 2001 37
 1999 NEELON CRAWFORD, POLAR FINE ARTS / GEMINI OBSERVATORY / NSF (2)

The new 8.1-meter Gemini North telescope on Mauna Kea began sci-
ence operations a year ago; its twin at Cerro Pachn, Chile, should
start work late this year. Adaptive optics will be an integral feature of
both. For now, Gemini North is equipped with a curvature AO system,
named Hokupaa, on loan from the University of Hawaii Institute for
Astronomy. These outside and inside views show Gemini North with
its side ventilation vents open at sunset.

Strategy Three: Curvature Systems

Franois Roddier of the AO group at the University of Hawaii
is convinced that laser-beacon systems will someday be regard-
ed as the dinosaurs of adaptive optics: too large, too ineffi-
cient, and bound for extinction. My hope is that we will never
have to use laser guidestars anymore, says Roddier.
His alternative is a different type of wavefront sensor without
the disadvantages of the classical Shack-Hartmann design. In-
stead of distributing the guidestars light across many tiny aper-
tures, a single curvature sensor, as it is called, uses all of the
image to measure the shape of the wavefront. The details are
hard to grasp, but the principle is pretty simple. Two defocused
images of the guidestar are taken, one on each side of the focal
plane. Amateurs who use the classic star test to judge backyard
telescopes will know whats coming next. If the wavefront were
perfectly flat, the brightness distribution in the two images
would be identical. Any distortions in the wavefront make them
look different. By precisely comparing the two extrafocal im-
ages, the system can reconstruct the wavefronts distortion.
Curvature systems have a limiting magnitude of 15 or 16,
says Roddier, corresponding to a sky coverage of 10 percent.
Future systems may go fainter. Moreover, he adds, the efficien-
cy of the actuators in a curvature system is much higher than
in a traditional system, because the shape corrections can be
applied to the rubber mirror with fewer actuators. The reason
is that the desired shape is not described as a large number of
offsets at particular points but as a relatively small number of
superimposed curvatures.
The successful AO system currently being used at the Gemi-
ni North telescope, called Hokupaa (Hawaiian for immov-
able star or Pole Star), is a curvature system originally built
by Roddiers group at the Institute for Astronomy of the Uni-
versity of Hawaii. The system, installed in May 1999, uses just
36 actuators. Roddier admits that Hokupaa is not yet as good
as the AO system at Keck, but in early 2002 it will be upgraded
to a system with 85 actuators. Hokupaa-85 will do as well as

38 October 2001 Sky & Telescope 2001 Sky Publishing Corp. All rights reserved.
 GEMINI OBS. / NSF / UNIVERSITY OF HAWAII INSTITUTE FOR ASTRONOMY / DANIEL POTTER
GEMINI OBSERVATORY / NSF

Above: Pluto and its satellite, Charon, never appear more than 0.9 arcsecond apart, but the
Gemini North telescope easily resolved them with the Hokupaa adaptive-optics system on
several nights in June 1999. Charon orbits Pluto every 6.4 days. Both appear slightly larger
than point sources in these infrared images.

Right: Without adaptive optics the young binary star GG Tauri would be a featureless fuzzball
as seen from Earth. This near-infrared view was obtained by the Hokupaa system on Gemini
North last February 24th. A massive ring of dust with a ragged inner edge orbits about 140 as-
tronomical units from the star pair (masked out and indicated by symbols) 450 light-years
away. The stars have a total mass of 1.2 Suns; the ring has about 0.3 solar mass. This image is
1
sharper than Hubble Space Telescope views of GG Tauri.

CURVATURE SYSTEMS HAVE A NUMBER OF SHORTCOMINGS, SAYS RIGAUT, WHICH MAKE

THEM ILL SUITED FOR REALLY LARGE TELESCOPES. BUT THE UNIVERSITY OF HAWAIIS
FRANOIS RODDIER DISAGREES. WE ARE TRYING TO PROVE THE OPPOSITE.

a conventional system with a few hundred actuators, but its
much cheaper, he says. The Shack-Hartmann AO system at
Keck II uses 349 actuators.
At the neighboring 8.3-meter Subaru telescope, Japanese as-
tronomers have set up a 36-actuator curvature AO system
comparable to Hokupaa. According to Subarus instrument
group manager Takuya Yamashita, it will be a competitor for
both the Gemini and Keck systems. First light was achieved in
late 2000. And at the European Southern Observatorys Very
Large Telescope at Cerro Paranal, Chile, a number of curva-
ture AO systems are being planned, in addition to a 196-
actuator Shack-Hartmann system (named NAOS/Conica) now
being installed.
Rigaut and his Gemini colleague Brent Ellerbroek say that
even though a duplicate of Hokupaa-85 will be installed on
Gemini South at Cerro Pachn in Chile, the next-generation
AO system at Gemini, called Altair, will be of the classical
Shack-Hartmann type. Altair, built at the Herzberg Institute of
Astrophysics in Victoria, British Columbia, will exploit a laser
system and is expected to be installed at Mauna Kea in 2002.
Curvature systems have a number of shortcomings, says
Rigaut, which make them ill suited for really large telescopes.
But Roddier disagrees. Many people still seem to think that,
he comments. We are trying to prove the opposite.
Strategy Four: Atmospheric Tomography
If astronomers plan to build really large telescopes, with aper-
tures of 20 meters or more, current techniques using one
guidestar (laser or otherwise) and one rubber mirror will not
suffice. Instead, astronomers will have to rely on a revolutionary
technique called multi-conjugate adaptive optics, or MCAO.
This technique has been described as atmospheric tomogra-
phy. Its reminiscent of medical tomography, whereby a sur-
geon obtains a three-dimensional view of a human body by
mapping many cross sections. MCAO enables astronomers to
build a three-dimensional model of atmospheric turbulence
all along a telescopes light path, not just a two-dimensional
map of its effect at the image plane.
For large telescopes this becomes more and more impor-
tant, as a simple argument shows. Suppose you had a 30-meter
telescope aimed at a galaxy. The light from the galaxy collected
by the giant mirror has traversed a cylinder of air 30 meters in
diameter. However, the light from the laser guidestar, which
sits some 90 kilometers up, does not traverse this entire cylin-
der of air. Instead, it traces out a cone with a base diameter of
30 meters tapering to a point at the top. Turbulent air within
the cylinder but outside the cone will go unmapped, and the
galaxy cannot be fully unblurred.
Multi-conjugate adaptive optics solves this problem by
using multiple guidestars, wavefront sensors, and rubber mir-
rors. It also overcomes the severe limits on the size of the
sharpened field of view. Jacques Beckers (National Optical As-
tronomy Observatories) was the first to describe this tech-
nique as atmospheric tomography (in 1988), though it had
been discussed in the literature before. Ellerbroek is one of the
few people who developed the technique during recent years.
Together with Rigaut he is designing an MCAO system for
Gemini that could be installed four years from now. The idea
is to use five laser guidestars arranged around the field of view.
We have a lot of confidence, he says. The basic components
are the same [as for a classical laser AO system]. We dont see
any physical uncertainties.
So how is the three-dimensional tomography achieved? Be-
cause the cones are oriented differently, the altitude of a piece
of turbulence thats shared by two or more of them can be
found essentially by parallax. Five laser guidestars should be
enough to construct a full 3-D map of the turbulence above
the telescope. Of course, this requires very fast computers,

2001 Sky Publishing Corp. All rights reserved. Sky & Telescope October 2001 39

10
FOR THE NEXT 10 YEARS OR SO, THERES NO WAY TO BEAT . . . THE NEXT GENERATION
SPACE TELESCOPE AT VISIBLE WAVELENGTHS, SAYS GEMINIS BRENT ELLERBROEK. BUT
WE CERTAINLY CAN BE COMPETITIVE WITH NGST IN THE NEAR INFRARED.
since the tomography calculations have to be executed many
hundreds of times per second.
In the system Ellerbroek and his colleagues are designing,
three rubber mirrors compensate separately for turbulence in
three altitude zones: one close to the telescope, one about 4
kilometers up, and one about 8 kilometers up. These altitudes
can be adjusted to match wherever most of the turbulence is
happening on a given night. In technical jargon, the rubber
mirrors are optically conjugated to specific altitudes; hence
the name multi-conjugate adaptive optics.
Computer simulations have indicated the great potential of
this technique, and Ellerbroek and Rigaut say MCAO will keep
Gemini competitive with other ground- and space-based tele-
scopes well into the 21st century. Initially, of course, most ob-
servations will be carried out in the near infrared, since every
type of adaptive optics is easier to do at longer wavelengths.
For the next 10 years or so, theres no way to beat the ex-
pected performance of the Next Generation Space Telescope at
visible wavelengths, says Ellerbroek, referring to the proposed
6-meter successor to the Hubble Space Telescope (recently
downsized from 8 meters). But we certainly can be competi-
tive with NGST in the near infrared.
Other groups are also studying MCAO, including the teams
designing the next generation of very large ground-based tele-
scopes. Building extremely large telescopes on Earth makes no
sense at all without MCAO, says Ellerbroek. The European
Southern Observatory is working on a demonstration system
that will probably be completed before the Gemini system.
They are in a luxurious position, comments Rigaut. We cant
40 October 2001 Sky & Telescope 2001 Sky Publishing Corp. All rights reserved.
Two AO views of the Milky Ways crowded center.
The field at left is an uncompensated infrared view
made by Gemini North in excellent (0.65-arcsecond)
seeing. The Hokupaa adaptive-optics system dra-
matically increased the resolution, as shown in the
upper inset. The lower inset shows a neighboring
field imaged with the Pueo
AO system on the 3.6-meter
Canada-France-Hawaii Tele-
scope. The massive but in-
active black hole at the
heart of the galaxy lies
approximately at the cen-
ter of the Pueo star field.
Wide-field image and
upper inset: Gemini
Observatory/NSF/Uni-
versity of Hawaii Insti-
tute for Astronomy/
Ruth A. Kneale. Lower
inset: Canada-France-
Hawaii Telescope.
afford to spend much money on building a prototype first.
Money will certainly be a key issue. An MCAO system needs
more wavefront sensors, rubber mirrors, electronics, computer
power, and last but not least, five times as many lasers as a con-
ventional laser-beacon system. But thats unless lasers can be
discarded altogether in favor of curvature systems, says Roddier.
If the field of view can be increased to a few arcminutes, it may
contain enough natural guidestars at the limiting magnitude for
a curvature system to do multi-conjugate adaptive optics. No
need for laser guidestars anymore thats my hope.
Less than 20 years after its inception, adaptive optics has
evolved into a mature, albeit extremely challenging, technique.
It stands at the threshold of becoming a routine observing
mode at many large telescopes. Twenty years from now every
professional telescope will probably use some sort of AO sys-
tem, and observing volcanic eruptions on Io from a moun-
taintop on Earth will no longer be considered extraordinary.
For some time to come, however, each AO result, especially
from telescopes as large as Gemini and Keck, will be consid-
ered a new treasure. Theres so much to find out there, says
Acton, and were lucky to be in a position to collect the most
exciting results. I really feel like the first kid in the garden dur-
ing an Easter-egg hunt.
Contributing editor Govert Schilling writes about astronomy from
his hometown of Utrecht, the Netherlands, though his passion for large
telescopes (and volcanoes) has taken him to Hawaii and Chile. His
book Flash! The Hunt for Cosmic Super Explosions, about gamma-
ray bursts, will soon be published by Cambridge University Press.