LINC-NIRVANA Commissioning at the Large Binocular Telescope -- Lessons Learned

TL;DR

This paper discusses the commissioning process and lessons learned from the LINC-NIRVANA instrument's adaptive optics system at the Large Binocular Telescope, providing insights for future MCAO instrument deployments.

Contribution

It offers a detailed account of the commissioning experience of LN's MCAO system, highlighting challenges and solutions for future adaptive optics instrument commissioning.

Findings

Successful commissioning of the left MCAO channel nearing completion

Lessons learned to optimize performance for faint guide stars

Insights into the unique multi-guide star wavefront sensing approach

Abstract

LINC-NIRVANA (LN) is one of the instruments on-board the Large Binocular Telescope (LBT). LN is a high-resolution, near-infrared imager equipped with an advanced adaptive optics module. LN implements layer-oriented Multi-Conjugate Adaptive Optics (MCAO) approach using two independent wavefront sensors per side of the binocular telescope measuring the turbulence volume above the telescope. The capability of acquiring up to 20 Natural Guide Stars simultaneously from two distinct fields of view, and using them for wavefront sensing with 20 separate pyramids per side of the telescope makes the LN MCAO system one of a kind. Commissioning of the left MCAO channel is almost complete, while that of the right arm is on-going. The Science Verification on the left side is expected to start soon after the MCAO performance is optimised for faint guide stars. In this article, we put together the lessons learned during the commissioning of the LN MCAO module. We hope and believe that this article will help the future MCAO instrument commissioning teams.