Phasing segmented mirrors using defocused images at visible wavelengths

Schumacher, A.; Devaney, N.
Bibliographical reference

Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Volume 366, Issue 2, pp. 537-546.

Advertised on:
2
2006
Number of authors
2
IAC number of authors
1
Citations
7
Refereed citations
7
Description
Plans for future optical telescopes of diameter more than 10m are based on segmented mirrors, made up of hundreds or even thousands of segments. A challenge for these telescopes is the alignment in piston (cophasing) where phase differences between individual segments have to be reduced to a small fraction of the observing wavelength in order to avoid degradation of image quality. Based on the phase discontinuity sensing method used at the Keck telescopes to measure small piston errors using infrared wavelengths, we develop a new method that allows fast high-precision measurements of large piston errors even at visible wavelengths.