On-Sky MOAO demonstrator (CANARY)

First light: 19 September, 2010.

Last commissioning:

Designed and built by: Observatoire de Paris, Durham University, ONERA, UK ATC and ING.

Description: CANARY is an open-loop Adaptive Optics system that will use multiple laser guide stars and deformable mirrors. It is the instrument that provides the first on-sky test of combined wide-field LGS tomography and open-loop AO control. On-sky validation of these combined techniques is performed with the goal of emulating a single channel of the proposed E-ELT MOAO instrument, EAGLE, albeit at 1/10th scale.

Some scientific highlights:

• CANARY: First On-Sky Demonstration of Multi-Object Adaptive Optics (2010)