April 9, 2008 NGS Engineering

Goals

The Palomar AO system has recently undergone a significant refurbishment. In the 4 months since November 29, 2007, we have:

• Recoated the AO relay flats and OAPs, and repolished and recoated the DM.
• Realigned the AO relay to provide a focus suitable for P1640 and SWIFT.
• Mounted FM3 on a removable kinematic base.
• Modified the PHARO mounting cradle to move PHARO forward 4.5".
• Modified the AO enclosure and added a PHARO FM3 enclosure.
• Installed a new AO stimulus, with 594nm laser source.
• Installed a new motor controller for Aerotech stages.

The purpose of this engineering night is to demonstrate the readiness of the refurbished system for NGS-AO science, and to characterize its performance.

Personnel and engineering schedules

Planning to be present: Angione, Baranec, Bouchez, Burruss, Roberts, Troy.
Engineering schedules:

Procedures and test plans

Please post your test plans on the Test Plan Library page, and add a link below.

• Daytime tests
  • AO bench setup and checkout (2 hrs) - J. Roberts
    • Align PHARO focus and pupil (DM and telescope).
    • Tune image on PHARO
    • Check centration of field stop.
    • Recalibrate LOWFS acquisition.
  • PHARO pupil motion (1 hr, telescope operator required) - A. Bouchez
  • Stimulus/AO system flexure (1 hr, telescope operator required) - R. Burruss
• Nighttime tests
  • SSM motion and pupil registration (1 hr) - J. Roberts.
  • Demonstrate new registration & flatmap routines (30 min) - J. Angione
  • Closed-loop performance (3 hr?) - A. Bouchez / J. Angione
    • Good seeing/Stable transmission.
    • V=6?, 8, 10, 12, 14
    • Test reconstructors?
  • Predictive AO data (10-15 min per data collection, multiple times per night (3-4) if possible) - M. Troy.
  • Throughput (1 hr; clear) - R. Burruss.
  • Platescale (PHARO, ACAM, LOWFS) (1 hr) - A. Bouchez
    • Target list (Calibration binaries, 2-15" separation)
  • Field distortion (30 min?) - B. Cameron / R. Dekany