Enhanced Seeing Mode: A Technique for Improving Wide-Field Angular Resolution in the near-Infrared using Adaptive Optics

摘要

The Adaptive Optics (AO) system at the Large Binocular Telescope (LBT) in conjunction with the f/30 camera on the LBT Utility Camera in the Infrared instruments (LUCI) can achieve diffraction limited image quality over a 30" × 30" field of view (FOV). The AO system also includes the ability to deliver only If modes of correction (including tip and tilt) to remove residual aberrations and jitter. When combined with the f/3.75 camera on either LUCI, this Enhanced Seeing Mode (ESM) can achieve a uniform angular resolution of 0".22 over a 4' x 4' FOV in the best natural seeing conditions. Further, unlike full AO, ESM can be used for binocular longslit and multi-object high-resolution spectroscopy (R≃10,000). It has been further demonstrated that even in poor seeing conditions (θ≫ 1".5) the image quality delivered to the LUCI focal stations is improved by 2-3× from 1-2.5 μm. Presented here are the latest characterization results for ESM after the upgrade from the First Light AO (FLAO) system to the second generation Single conjugated adaptive optics Upgrade for LBT (SOUL). It is proposed that ESM should become a standard observational mode for near-Infrared LBT observations.