Abstract

SUBARU telescope is being constructed atop Mauna Kea in the Hawaii island. It employs an 8.2 m thin-meniscus primary mirror that is supported by 261 actuators and 3 fixed points and will provide an almost perfect surface figure for the near infrared imaging. Under such circumstances, the atmospheric turbulence will become the dominant source of image degradation. Therefore, an adaptive optics (hereafter AO) system is essential in attaining the high resolution imaging capability for large ground-based telescopes.

© 1996 Optical Society of America