Adaptive optics

Adaptive optics is a technology to improve the performance of optical systems by reducing the effects of rapidly changing optical distortion. It is commonly used on astronomical telescopes to remove the effects of atmospheric distortion.

Adaptive optical works by measuring the distortion and rapidly compensating for it either using deformable mirrors or material with variable refractive properties. While the idea was theoretically understood for some time, it was only advances in computer technology during the 1990s that finally made the technique practical.

Adaptive optics should not be confused with active optics, which works on a longer timescale to correct the primary mirror geometry itself. The simplest form of adaptive optics is tip-tilt correction, which corresponds to correction of the tilts of the wavefront in two dimensions (equal to correction of the position offsets for the image). This is performed using a rapidly moving tip-tilt mirror which makes small rotations around two of its axes.

A significant fraction of the distortion introduced by the atmosphere can be removed in this way. Tip-tilt mirrors are widely used in night time and solar telescopes, to correct the effect introduced by Earth's atmosphere on the light path and improve image quality.

Tip-tilt mirrors are effectively segmented adaptive optics mirrors with only one segment which can tip and tilt, rather than having an array of multiple segments which can tip and tilt independently.

 Other websites 
 Description of Active & Adaptive Optics E.S.O.
 Adaptive Optics Tutorial at CTIO  A. Tokovinin
 Research groups and companies with interests in Adaptive Optics
 NSF Center for Adaptive Optics at UC Santa Cruz
 Center for Astronomical Adaptive Optics at The University of Arizona 
 Using Adaptive Optics to image photoreceptors 
 Gemini's Laser Vision Reveals Striking New Details in Orion Nebula
 Adaptive optics pinpoints on black holes 
 Uranus in 2004  (with and without AO)

Category:Telescopes