First generation solar adaptive optics system for 1-m New Vacuum Solar Telescope at Fuxian Solar Observatory

Abstract

The first generation solar adaptive optics (AO) system, which consists of a fine tracking loop with a tip-tilt mirror (TTM) and a correlation tracker, and a high-order correction loop with a 37-element deformable mirror (DM), a correlating Shack-Hartmann (SH) wavefront sensor (WFS) based on the absolute difference algorithm and a real time controller (RTC), has been developed and installed at the 1-m New Vacuum Solar Telescope (NVST) that is part of Fuxian Solar Observatory (FSO). Compared with the 37-element solar AO system developed for the 26-cm Solar Fine Structure Telescope, administered by Yunnan Astronomical Observatories, this AO system has two updates: one is the subaperture arrangement of the WFS changed from square to hexagon; the other is the high speed camera of the WFS and the corresponding real time controller. The WFS can be operated at a frame rate of 2100 Hz and the error correction bandwidth can exceed 100 Hz. After AO correction, the averaged residual image motion and the averaged RMS wavefront error are reduced to 0.06″ and 45 nm, respectively. The results of on-sky testing observations demonstrate better contrast and finer structures of the images taken with AO than those without AO.