Physics – Optics
Scientific paper
May 2009
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2009aas...21424001l&link_type=abstract
American Astronomical Society, AAS Meeting #214, #240.01; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 41, p.743
Physics
Optics
Scientific paper
The MMT operates a facility natural guide star (NGS) AO system. Diffraction limited imaging and medium and high resolution spectroscopy in the near IR are offered over the full isoplanatic field with the ARIES instrument.The system also offers imaging with unique sensitivity in the thermal IR from 3 to 10 microns thanks to its use of an adaptive secondary mirror. L and M band imaging is offered with Clio which has a 12x15 arcsec field of view with Nyquist sampling if the diffraction limt. Recent M band images from Clio show the planetary system around HR8799. In addition, 10 - 25 micron imaging is offered with the MIRAC camera, which may also be operated as a Bracewell nulling interferometer. In this mode, two large subapertures are defined within the pupil. Light from the two is combined so as to cancel the light from an unresolved star through destructive interference, while the environs are imaged in constructive interference. In this way, dust disks and planetary systems may be imaged with greatly improved contrast.
The MMT also operates the first astronomical adaptive optics system to employ multiple laser guide stars (LGS). Its initial operational mode, ground-layer adaptive optics (GLAO), provides uniform stellar wavefront correction within the 2 arcmin diameter laser beacon constellation, routinely reducing the stellar image widths to < 0.3 arcsec in the J - K bands. An imaging camera,PISCES, is available for these bands with 2 arcmin field of view sampled at 0.1 arcsec/pixel. In addition, L and M band imaging will be available with Clio in the fall of 2009, opening up near all-sky coverage with near-diffraction limited image quality and emissivity of just 7%.
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