ESO: Supersharp Images from New VLT Adaptive Optics

Find out the latest thinking about our universe.
Post Reply
User avatar
bystander
Apathetic Retiree
Posts: 21571
Joined: Mon Aug 28, 2006 2:06 pm
Location: Oklahoma

ESO: Supersharp Images from New VLT Adaptive Optics

Post by bystander » Wed Jul 18, 2018 4:31 pm

Supersharp Images from New VLT Adaptive Optics
ESO Photo Release | VLT | MUSE | GALACSI | 2018 Jul 18
Click to view full size image 1 or image 2
Neptune from the VLT with & without MUSE/GALACSI Narrow Field Mode adaptive optics
(Credit: ESO/P. Weilbacher (AIP))

ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) has achieved first light with a new adaptive optics mode called laser tomography — and has captured remarkably sharp test images of the planet Neptune, star clusters and other objects. The pioneering MUSE instrument in Narrow-Field Mode, working with the GALACSI adaptive optics module, can now use this new technique to correct for turbulence at different altitudes in the atmosphere. It is now possible to capture images from the ground at visible wavelengths that are sharper than those from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. The combination of exquisite image sharpness and the spectroscopic capabilities of MUSE will enable astronomers to study the properties of astronomical objects in much greater detail than was possible before.

The MUSE (Multi Unit Spectroscopic Explorer) instrument on ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) works with an adaptive optics unit called GALACSI. This makes use of the Laser Guide Star Facility, 4LGSF, a subsystem of the Adaptive Optics Facility (AOF). The AOF provides adaptive optics for instruments on the VLTs Unit Telescope 4 (UT4). MUSE was the first instrument to benefit from this new facility and it now has two adaptive optics modes — the Wide Field Mode and the Narrow Field Mode [1].

The MUSE Wide Field Mode coupled to GALACSI in ground-layer mode corrects for the effects of atmospheric turbulence up to one kilometre above the telescope over a comparatively wide field of view. But the new Narrow Field Mode using laser tomography corrects for almost all of the atmospheric turbulence above the telescope to create much sharper images, but over a smaller region of the sky [2].

viewtopic.php?t=37444
Know the quiet place within your heart and touch the rainbow of possibility; be
alive to the gentle breeze of communication, and please stop being such a jerk.
— Garrison Keillor

User avatar
Ann
4725 Å
Posts: 13372
Joined: Sat May 29, 2010 5:33 am

Re: ESO: Supersharp Images from New VLT Adaptive Optics

Post by Ann » Wed Jul 18, 2018 5:12 pm

Very interesting!

This sky-blue Neptune looks lovely indeed, although I think that as far as "true color" is concerned... Well, I better not say what I think about the color of the ESO picture of Neptune, or else Art may give me a figurative spanking for my impertinence!

And this ground-based adaptive image picture of the center of globular cluster NGC 6388 is great! The colors look good, too. Note the two very red stars, which may be Asymtotic Giant Branch stars that are are huge and bloated and ready to slough off their outer atmospheres as they prepare to become white dwarfs. Note the very blue star at left, which is probably be a B-type blue horizontal branch star. And note the greenish star just below center right. Could that be one of those A- to F-type RR Lyrae stars?

Ann
Color Commentator

Post Reply