First light of the LINC-NIRVANA Pathfinder experiment

Abstract

The LINC-NIRVANA Pathfinder experiment is a test-bed to verify a very complex sub-system: the Ground-layer Wavefront Sensor, or GWS. Pathfinder will test the GWS in its final working environment and demonstrate on-sky the performance achievable with a multiple natural guide star, ground-layer adaptive optics system with a very wide FoV. The GWS uses up to 12 natural guide stars within a 2.8'-6' annular field of view and drives the LBT adaptive secondary mirror to correct the lower layers of atmospheric turbulence. This paper will trace the path of the instrument on its way to First Light on-sky in November 2013, from its installation on the telescope to the calibrations to its final operation, focusing in particular on opto-mechanical and software aspects and how they lead to the main achieved results.