Astron. Astrophys. 342, L53-L56 (1999)

Letter to the Editor

Modal tomography for adaptive optics

Roberto Ragazzoni ¹, Enrico Marchetti ² and François Rigaut <sup>3

1</sup> Astronomical Observatory of Padova, vicolo dell'Osservatorio 5, I-35122 Padova, Italy
² Centro Galileo Galilei, Apartado 565, E-38700 Santa Cruz de La Palma, Spain
³ Southern European Observatory, Karl Schwarzschild Strasse 2, D-85386 Garching bei München, Germany

Received 26 October 1998 / Accepted 17 January 1999

Abstract

Multiple Laser Guide Stars can be used to retrieve the three-dimensional distribution of the perturbing layers on the coming wavefront in Adaptive Optics system and to derive corrections for conical anisoplanatism. We outline the basic analytical details of a modal approach to this problem. The advantages of this approach with respect to the traditional zonal one are pointed out along with a preliminary discussion of the way the involved matrices are to be treated in order to minimize noise propagation problems.

Key words: instrumentation: adaptive optics atmospheric effects telescopes

Online publication: February 23, 1999

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