Natural guide star adaptive optics systems at LBT: FLAO commissioning and science operations status

Abstract

This paper summarizes the activities and the principal results achieved during the commissioning of the two Natural Guide Star (NGS) AO systems called FLAO#1 & 2 installed at the bent Gregorian focal stations of the 2x8.4m Large Binocular Telescope (LBT). The commissioning activities of FLAO#1 took place in the period February 2010 - October 2011, while FLAO#2 commissioning started in December 2011 and should be completed by November 2012. The main results of the commissioning campaign are presented in terms of the H-band Strehl Ratio values achieved under different observing conditions. We will also describe the automatic procedures to configure and set-up the FLAO systems, and in particular the modal gain optimization procedure, which has been proven to be a very important one in achieving the nominal performance. Finally, some of the results achieved in two science runs using the near infra-red camera PISCES are briefly highlighted.