AOLI: Near-diffraction limited imaging in the visible on large ground-based telescopes

TL;DR

AOLI combines Lucky Imaging and adaptive optics to achieve near-diffraction limited visible imaging on large ground-based telescopes, demonstrating high-resolution capabilities for faint astronomical targets.

Contribution

This paper presents the development and design of AOLI, a system that enhances ground-based visible imaging using a simplified wavefront sensor and advanced CCD technology.

Findings

Successful demonstration of high-resolution imaging on the Palomar 5m telescope

Design and deployment of AOLI on the WHT 4.2m telescope

Efficient low order curvature wavefront sensor with wide sky coverage

Abstract

The combination of Lucky Imaging with a low order adaptive optics system was demonstrated very successfully on the Palomar 5m telescope nearly 10 years ago. It is still the only system to give such high-resolution images in the visible or near infrared on ground-based telescope of faint astronomical targets. The development of AOLI for deployment initially on the WHT 4.2 m telescope in La Palma, Canary Islands, will be described in this paper. In particular, we will look at the design and status of our low order curvature wavefront sensor which has been somewhat simplified to make it more efficient, ensuring coverage over much of the sky with natural guide stars as reference object. AOLI uses optically butted electron multiplying CCDs to give an imaging array of 2000 x 2000 pixels.