Villages: an on-sky visible wavelength astronomy AO experiment using a MEMS deformable mirror

Abstract

The MEMS-AO/Villages project consists of a series of on-sky experiments that will demonstrate key new technologies for the next generation of adaptive optics systems for large telescopes. One of our first goals is to demonstrate the use of a micro-electro-mechanical systems (MEMS) deformable mirror as the wavefront correcting element. The system is mounted the 1-meter Nickel Telescope at the UCO/Lick Observatory on Mount Hamilton. It uses a 140 element (10 subapertures across) MEMS deformable mirror and is designed to produce diffraction-limited images at wavelengths from 0.5 to 1.0 microns. The system had first light on the telescope in October 2007. Here we report on the results of initial on-sky tests.