Abstract 319

Submitted by Markus KISSLER-PATIG

Authors

M. Kissler-Patig

Affiliations

European Southern Observatory

Abstract

The E-ELT is the most ambitious of the ELTs been planed. Its main characteristic is to be an adaptive telescope, i.e. AO is included in the telescope design. I will present the science case for the E-ELT which is largely driven by a diffraction limited image quality of the telescope. The science goals span from the direct imaging and characterisation of exo-planets to studying the most distant objects in the universe. The science cases imply a long term deployment at the telescope of many AO flavours (ground-layer AO, single conjugated AO, laser tomography AO, multi-conjugated AO, multi-object AO, extreme AO,...). While some of these are covered by the telescope, others will require post-focal AO modules feeding the instruments. I will provide a short overview of the current requirements on the AO flavours.