Development of the Laser Guide Star Facility (LGSF)

Start year
2021
End year
2023

Grants related:

    General
    Description

    The Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation and the IAC has signed the ERDF Agreement INSIDE-OOCC (8,139 keuros) to guarantee the implementation of 11 actions of the Strategic Plan approved for the Observatorios de Canarias (OOCC) in 2018. A bried summary of the strategic investments for the Laser Guide Star Facility Development (LGSF) are described below:

    Adaptive Optics (AO) systems allow correcting the effects of atmospheric turbulence in the light that comes from scientific object in the sky, to make high spatial resolution observations. AO systems can only operate in regions of the sky where there is a bright star close to the scientific object. To be able to make science with AO anywhere in the sky, it is necessary to generate with a laser an artificial star, which is called a Laser Guide Star. 

    This project includes the specification, design, manufacturing, integration and testing of all the systems that are part of the LGSF, specially the Laser System, the Laser Transfer System, the Laser Launch Telescope, the Launch Structure, the Laser Wavefront Sensor, the Laser Pointing Camera, and the Control and Safety System. the project also includes the System Engineering and the Assembly, Integration and Verification fo the LGSF. This major upgrade is necessary to support the coming era of instruments at the OOCC.

    Principal investigator
    Project manager

    Related publications

    No related publications were found.

    Related talks

    No related talks were found.

    Related conferences

    No related conferences were found.
    Related projects
    Global View of the GTCAO optical bench with all its componentes installed during the laboratory tests
    GTCAO LGS. Adaptative Optics and Laser Guide Star for GTC

    The Adaptive Optics (AO) for the Gran Telescopio Canarias (GTC) corrects the effect of the atmospheric turbulence on the light, to exploit the high spatial resolution capability of GTC. The Laser Guide Star (LGS) extends the coverage of GTCAO to any part of the sky, increasing dramatically the capability to do high spatial resolution science.

    Víctor Javier
    Sánchez Bejar
    Image of the first optical alingment of FRIDA
    FRIDA - inFRared Imager and Dissector for Adaptive optics

    FRIDA (inFRared Imager and Dissector for Adaptive optics) is an integral field spectrograph in the near infrared, also with image mode, which will be installed in the GTC telescope. It will use the adaptive optics system of GTC (GTCAO) to observe with very high spatial resolution and spectral resolutions of up to 30,000.

    Almudena
    Prieto Escudero