NAOMI Workshop

Adaptive Optics has been the centre piece of ING’s development programme for some years now. First results of the NAOMI AO system at the WHT have been presented in earlier issues of this newsletter. As ING is climbing the steep learning curve of adaptive optics, the time was considered ripe to compare our experience at the WHT with that of other telescopes with many more years of experience. In order to keep the workshop well focussed and encourage the best opportunities for debating results only a small number of participants were invited to attend. Key invited guests included Norbert Hubin from the European Southern Observatory, Francois Rigaut from GEMINI, Stefan Hippler from the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy, and Eric Steinbring from the Centre for Adaptive Optics. But apart from the invited guests, we also had excellent contributions from Adriano Ghedina of the Telescopio Nazionale Galileo, where adaptive optics features as part of the instrument set, and from Nicholas Devaney of the GTC 10-m telescope project. Plans for GTC include an AO system as part of their second-generation instrument suit. Presentations on design and current performance of NAOMI and the OSCA coronograph were given by Richard Myers from Durham University, and by Chris Benn and Sebastian Els from the ING.

Presentations and discussions included aspects such as performance expectations and reality of operational AO systems; performance characterisation; specific problems and advantages of segmented and continuous deformable mirrors; calibration and data reduction aspects. For the AO group at ING this sharing of experience and open discussion has been an extremely useful event which helped the team to focus on key questions with some of the world specialists in the field. More information: http://www.ing.iac.es/~fprada/naomi.html.¤

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Snapshots and participants of the NAOMI Workshop 9-11 January 2003.

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Email contact: René Rutten (rgmr@ing.iac.es)