Layer Oriented Wavefront sensor for MAD on Sky operations

TL;DR

This paper discusses the development and on-sky testing of a Layer Oriented wavefront sensor with multiple pyramids for adaptive optics, demonstrating its integration with the MAD system.

Contribution

It introduces a multi-pyramid wavefront sensor for Layer Oriented adaptive optics and details its implementation and on-sky performance within MAD.

Findings

Successful on-sky operation of the Layer Oriented wavefront sensor

Effective co-addition of light from multiple reference stars

Integration of the sensor with the MAD adaptive optics system

Abstract

The Multiconjugate Adaptive optics Demonstrator (MAD) has successfully demonstrated on sky both Star Oriented (SO) and Layer Oriented (LO) multiconjugate adaptive optics techniques. While SO has been realized using 3 Shack-Hartmann wavefront sensors (WFS), we designed a multi-pyramid WFS for the LO. The MAD bench accommodates both WFSs and a selecting mirror allows choosing which sensor to use. In the LO approach up to 8 pyramids can be placed on as many reference stars and their light is co-added optically on two different CCDs conjugated at ground and to an high layer. In this paper we discuss LO commissioning phase and on sky operations.