Abstract

The Max Planck Institute for Astronomy in Heidelberg is constructing a laser guide star atmospheric compensation system for the 3.5m Calar Alto telescope. The system consists of a tilt compensation loop, a high-order adaptive optics loop, and a sodium wavelength dye laser. These subsystems are to be fully integrated into the observatory control software system. The hardware is to be installed at the telescope and testing begun in the Fall of 1996. This paper deals with the design of the wavefront sensing and compensation subsystem.

© 1996 Optical Society of America