Shane Telescope upgrade includes MEMS deformable mirrors designed by Professor Thomas Bifano
On September 26, 2009, the Lick Observatory at the University of California, Santa Cruz celebrated its 50th Anniversary with an adaptive optics upgrade to the Shane Telescope. The two million dollar upgrade, funded by a grant from the National Science Foundation, includes Micro-Electro-Mechanical Systems (MEMS) deformable mirrors, designed by Boston University Photonics Center (BUPC) Director, Professor Thomas Bifano.
Adaptive optics are used in astronomy to reduce the distortion of astronomical objects caused by atmospheric turbulence. Typically, images produced by telescopes are blurred due to interference from various layers of temperature and wind in the earth’s atmosphere. The image is corrected with the use of a deformable mirror, a wavefront sensor and a laser guide star (LGS). The LGS used at the Shane Telescope is known as a sodium guide star. This LGS is used to excite sodium atoms in the atmosphere, giving scientists a fixed point in the sky. The wavefront sensor, connected to a computer sends light wavelength information to the deformable mirror in the telescope several times a second. The deformable mirror is a hand assembled glass mirror with transducers glued to the back to adjust its shape. Once receiving the information from the wavefront sensor, the mirror adjusts to the wavelength, removing the blur from the image.
The mirror architecture and prototypes were developed in Professor Bifano’s laboratory at the BUPC and were produced for the Shane Telescope by Boston Micromachines Corporation where Professor Bifano serves as Chief Technology Officer. The new mirrors replace a decades old system and will allow scientists at Lick Observatory to correct images faster, more precisely and more economically. The new system will substantially improve image sharpness in the Shane Telescope instruments. Dr. Dan Gavel, a professor at the University of California, Santa Cruz, is leading this effort.