Advancing Autonomous Adaptive Optics and Adaptive Secondary Mirror Technologies

About This Grant

This program fully automates the recently commissioned adaptive optics (AO) system, Robo-AO-2, with the University of Hawaii 2.2-m telescope (UH2.2-m). Robo-AO-2 delivers images that are similar in resolution to that of space telescopes of comparable size. Once automated, it will be used to rapidly characterize transient astronomical events in unprecedented numbers and detect changes in monitored objects early in their development. Robo-AO-2 will also be used to demonstrate new AO technologies and techniques, including command and performance evaluation of the new UH 2.2-m Adaptive Secondary Mirror (ASM), as well as innovative hybrid techniques that extend the brightness limit of high-contrast AO systems for the detection of exoplanets around cool stars. Access to adaptive optics is broadened through automation, lowering barriers for non-specialists to conduct high-resolution imaging, and providing six months of guaranteed observing time to foster survey-driven collaborations with the U.S. and international astronomical community. This program supports the current and future AO workforce, providing graduate through high-school students experience with modern telescope instrumentation and techniques. The fully automated, diffraction-limited Robo-AO-2 system developed in this program provides critical support of time-domain and multi-messenger astronomy: characterizing thousands of discoveries through additional observations at higher spatial or spectral resolution, or at complementary cadences or periods, isolating sources in crowded fields, and obtaining colors of blended objects. Three areas of technical advance are made in observing efficiency, pathfinding technology, and observational techniques. High observing efficiency is achieved via completion of software to integrate Robo-AO-2 fully with the new UH2.2m telescope control system and the new autonomous UH2.2m robotic observatory, Robo88. On-sky demonstration of a new actuator and ASM technology for visible wavelength AO on ground-based astronomical telescopes is enabled by integrating the UH2.2m ASM with the Robo-AO-2. Demonstration of an innovative hybrid AO technique, comprising the tomographic combination of laser and stellar wavefront measurements, will also enabled by Robo-AO-2. This promises to extend high Strehl ratio correction to significantly fainter targets, including M-dwarfs and very young stars in nearby associations at near-infrared wavelengths. The student training in this program provides fundamental skills for development of future astronomical instrumentation. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.