Abstract

SCIDAR (Scintillation Distance And Ranging) is used to determine the height and strength of optically turbulent layers in the atmosphere. One use of this information is in adaptive optics, both in the design of a system and in its regular operation. The technique of was first proposed by Vernin and colleagues [1, 2, 3, 4], and further developed by Tyler [5]. This paper evaluates SCIDAR as a method for turbulence profiling, and describes algorithms which have been developed to make it viable. This has been aided by a simulation of the propagation of light through 3D random media.

© 1996 Optical Society of America