ESO: Four Lasers Over Paranal

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bystander
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ESO: Four Lasers Over Paranal

Post by bystander » Wed Apr 27, 2016 2:56 pm

Four Lasers Over Paranal
ESO Organisation Release | VLT | 2016 Apr 27

First light for the Four Laser Guide Star Facility on ESO’s Very Large Telescope
[img3="Credit: ESO/F. Kamphues"]https://cdn.eso.org/images/screen/eso1613a.jpg[/img3][hr][/hr]
On 26 April 2016 ESO’s Paranal Observatory in Chile hosted an event to mark the first light for the four powerful lasers that form a crucial part of the adaptive optics systems on ESO’s Very Large Telescope. Attendees were treated to a spectacular display of cutting-edge laser technology against the majestic skies of Paranal. These are the most powerful laser guide stars ever used for astronomy and the event marks the first use of multiple laser guide stars at ESO. ...

The Four Laser Guide Star Facility (4LGSF) shines four 22-watt laser beams into the sky to create artificial guide stars by making sodium atoms in the upper atmosphere glow so that they look just like real stars [1]. The artificial stars allow the adaptive optics systems to compensate for the blurring caused by the Earth’s atmosphere and so that the telescope can create sharp images. Using more than one laser allows the turbulence in the atmosphere to be mapped in far greater detail to significantly improve the image quality over a larger field of view. ...
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