Abstract 110

Submitted by Brent ELLERBROEK

Authors

B. Ellerbroek

Affiliations

TMT Observatory Corporation

Abstract

At first light, the overall AO system architecture for the Thirty Meter Telescope will consist of the Narrow Field Infra-Red AO System (NFIRAOS) and the associated Laser Guide Star Facility (LGSF). NFIRAOS is an order 60x60, dual conjugate, laser guide star AO system designed to obtain diffraction-limited performance in the near IR with high sky coverage. It will provide a delivered wavefront error of 190-200 nm RMS over a central 15-30 arc second field-of-view, and a lesser degree of atmosphereic turbulence compensation over a larger 2 arc minute field for multi-object spectroscopy and low order (tip/tilt/focus) natural guide star wavefront sensing in the near IR. The LGSF generates 6 sodium laser guidestars for use with NFIRAOS, using 6 25-watt lasers located in the telescope azimuth structure and a laser launch telescope behind the TMT secondary mirror.

In this paper, we review the work to date on requirements derivation, design development, performance analysis, and component prototyping for these AO systems. The possible options for future MOAO, ExAO, GLAO, and MIRAO systems for TMT are also briefly described.