Aug 2026· Astronomical Telescopes + Instrumentation· Vol 14150, pp. 141501M - 141501M-4· 2 citations· 6 references
Engineering
Abstract
Laser guide star (LGS) adaptive optics has become widespread in ground-based astronomy. It is also the most promising approach for countering atmospheric distortions in uplink optical satellite communications and laser-based space debris tracking and maneuvering. The best performance is achieved when the LGS is created in the sodium layer at 90 km altitude. A major shortcoming of the technique is the tip/tilt indeterminacy of the LGS, which requires an additional reference beacon (natural guide star or satellite downlink), limiting sky coverage or the control of uplink beam wander. We report on recent simulations and on-sky experiments exploring the feasibility of a polychromatic LGS, which enables tip/tilt measurement via the differential tilt between two wavelengths emitted by the sodium guide star. For the experiments, we used two state-of-the-art > 50-W laser systems at 589 and 569nm, based on TOPTICA’s second-generation guide star laser platform.
We introduce the NASA-funded mission STARI (STarlight Acquisition and Reflection toward Interferometry), a two-spacecraft technology demonstrator for future long-baseline interferometers. STARI will perform, to our knowledge, the first in-space transfer of starlight between free-flying spacecraft, a critical step towar...
J. Monnier, James Cutler, A. Dubey et al.· Astronomical Telescopes + In...· 1 citation
Nulling interferometry is a promising method for direct detection and characterization of faint stellar companions such as exoplanets and faint binary sources. The dominant constraint on instrument performance is instability noise from vibrations, thermal expansions, and other systematic sources. Photonic instruments h...
Samantha G. Morrison, P. Gatkine, M. Fitzgerald· Astronomical Telescopes + In...· 0 citations
Transmissometers provide high-accuracy visibility measurements, but existing systems often suffer from limited range and significant uncertainty. We developed a new transmissometer using a white light emitting diode that produces a 0.6-mrad parallel beam, with a 110 mm aperture lens ensuring full-energy collection. To...
Shi-Guo Zhang, Xiao-Jie Wang, Wei Wang et al.· Review of Scientific Instrum...· 0 citations
Future gravitational-wave observatories such as Einstein Telescope and Cosmic Explorer will require a substantial evolution of the laser frequency stabilization strategies currently employed in second-generation interferometric detectors. In Advanced Virgo and Advanced LIGO, residual laser frequency noise is strongly s...
Extreme-precision radial-velocity (EPRV) spectrographs now operate near the ∼10 cm s−1 level, and the next generation of instruments targets < 10 cm s−1 in order to detect terrestrial planets in the habitable zones of Sun-like stars. At this level, once vacuum operation, thermal control, and detector characterization h...
S. Schäfer, M. Debus, T. Schmidt et al.· Astronomical Telescopes + In...· 0 citations
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