Presented at
32C3 (2015),
Dec. 27, 2015, 9:45 p.m.
(60 minutes).
Light of astronomical objects gets distorted as it passes earth’s atmosphere. Adaptive optics can correct this distortion and create images that are as sharp as those taken in space. The correction needs a bright reference star. If there is no such star nearby, an artificial Laser Guide Star can be created in the upper atmosphere.
A lot of clever real time software, hardware and feedback loops steer a deformable mirror to straighten the distorted wavefront. The talk looks at the technologies of this fascinating technique and will also cover the question how to become a laser-rocket-scientist. Also, there will be star-wars like laser pew pew pictures & videos.
In the first part I will talk about the background of adaptive optics and how it enables ground-based observations which people though to be impossible only two decades ago. We will look at the building blocks of such a system and how they are combined to work together nicely.
The second part will look at a real Laser-AO system, the project I have worked with, ARGOS at the LARGE Binocular Telescope in Arizona. I will present the system in detail and talk about the little things in all the black boxes. Mechanics, electronics, Optics and Software. We will have images and videos of the system at work and look at first test results showing the potential of this system.
ARGOS feeds one of three near-infrared multi-object spectrometers that exists on this planet (Instruments name: LUCI). LUCI is used to record light from the universe 11 billion years ago to to answer the question where galaxies came from and how they developed.
In the last (somewhat shorter) part I want to briefly talk about what it takes to get into this kind of work, how to become a „laser rocket scientist“. I get this question a lot in Q&A sessions and therefore want to address it right away. There are misconceptions about his type of work and quite a number of people leave the field again – mainly because school and especially university puts up a distorted picture and sometimes questionable promises about careers in science.
Presenters:
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Peter Buschkamp
... building research instruments for astrophysics by day to use them at night. Time in between is spent discussing and mulling over implications of natural and computer sciences for society, hiking the alps and helping building the Munich Freifunk backbone.
Made towards the end of the 70s, my endeavors started with a broken (but fixed by my dad) SX-64. Hooked up ATARIs to synthesizers and CB in the 90s.
After studying Experimental- and Laser-Physics in Bielefeld, I received a PhD in Astrophysics from the Max Planck Institute for extraterrestrial Physics. I co-built LUCI and contributed to the ARGOS project - the two astronomical instruments that will be in the talk.
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