Characterisation of ALPAO deformable mirrors for the NAOMI VLTI Auxiliary Telescopes Adaptive Optics

Jean-Baptiste Le Bouquin; Jean-Philippe Berger; Jean-Luc Beuzit; Eric Cottalorda; Alain Delboulbe; Sebastien E. Egner; Frederic Yves Joseph Gonte; Sylvain Guieu; Pierre Haguenauer; Laurent Jocou; Yves Magnard; Thibaut Moulin; Sylvain Rochat; Christophe Verinaud; Julien Woillez

arXiv · 1806.10552

Characterisation of ALPAO deformable mirrors for the NAOMI VLTI Auxiliary Telescopes Adaptive Optics

Jean-Baptiste Le Bouquin·Jean-Philippe Berger·Jean-Luc Beuzit·Eric Cottalorda·Alain Delboulbe·Sebastien E. Egner·Frederic Yves Joseph Gonte·Sylvain Guieu·Pierre Haguenauer·Laurent Jocou·Yves Magnard·Thibaut Moulin·Sylvain Rochat·Christophe Verinaud·Julien Woillez

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Abstract

The Very Large Telescope Interferometer Auxiliary Telescopes will soon be equipped with an adaptive optics system called NAOMI. The corrective optics deformable mirror is the commercial DM241 from ALPAO. Being part of an interferometer operating from visible to mid-infrared, the DMs of NAOMI face several challenges (high level of reliability, open-loop chopping, piston-free control, WFS/DM pupil rotation, high desired bandwidth and stroke). We here describe our extensive characterization of the DMs through measurements and simulations. We summarize the operational scenario we have defined to handle the specific mirror properties. We conclude that the ALPAO DMs have overall excellent properties that fulfill most of the stringent requirements and that deviations from specifications are easily handled. To our knowledge, NAOMI will be the first astronomical system with a command in true Zernike modes (allowing software rotation), and the first astronomical system in which a chopping is performed with the deformable mirror (5'' sky, at 5~Hz).

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Jean-Baptiste Le Bouquin, Jean-Philippe Berger, Jean-Luc Beuzit, Eric Cottalorda, Alain Delboulbe, Sebastien E. Egner, Frederic Yves Joseph Gonte, Sylvain Guieu, Pierre Haguenauer, Laurent Jocou, Yves Magnard, Thibaut Moulin, Sylvain Rochat, Christophe Verinaud, Julien Woillez. 2018-06-27. Characterisation of ALPAO deformable mirrors for the NAOMI VLTI Auxiliary Telescopes Adaptive Optics. https://arxiv.org/abs/1806.10552

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