Mr. Brandon Mechtley Profile

Brandon Mechtley

at Large Binocular Telescope Observatory

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Author

Publications (2)

Proceedings Article | 12 September 2024 Poster + Paper

On-sky performance metric parametrization at LBTO pyramid WFS

J. Guerra, S. Ragland, B. Mechtley, G. Brusa, D. Miller, J. Power, G. Taylor, X. Zhang, E. Pinna

Proceedings Volume 13097, 130977L (2024) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.3020645

KEYWORDS: Adaptive optics, Wavefront sensors, Stars, Optical tracking, Observatories, Wavefront errors, Telescopes, Satellites, Equipment, Demodulation

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Proceedings Article | 3 September 2024 Presentation + Paper

Emerging adaptive optics facility at Large Binocular Telescope Observatory

Sam Ragland, Guido Brusa, Alessandro Cavallaro, Heejoo Choi, Juan Carlos Guerra, Tom Herbst, Michael Lefebvre, Douglas Miller, Fernando Pedichini, Jennifer Power, Joseph Shields, Mark Smithwright, Gregory Taylor, Christian Veillet, Xianyu Zhang, Roberto Biasi, Al Conrad, Laird Close, Simone Esposito, Daniele Gallieni, Elena Masciadri, Brandon Mechtley, Eliad Peretz, Enrico Pinna, Roberto Ragazzoni, Fabio Rossi, Guido Agapito, Matthieu Bec, Maria Bergomi, Thomas Bertram, Florian Briegel, Jacopo Farinato, John Hill, Daewook Kim, Luca Marafatto, Roberto Piazzesi, Kalyan Radhakrishnan, Armando Riccardi

Proceedings Volume 13097, 130970L (2024) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.3019441

KEYWORDS: Adaptive optics, Telescopes, Wavefront sensors, Equipment, Actuators, Observatories, Cameras, Wavefronts, Stars, Metrology

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The Large Binocular Telescope (LBT) Observatory pioneered Adaptive Optics (AO) technologies such as Adaptive Secondary Mirror (ASM), Pyramid wavefront sensor, and Ground-layer AO using Rayleigh lasers at 8 to 10m class telescopes. We have initiated an effort to turn LBT AO into a facility-class capability. The effort involves (1) building an AO team with AO development capability, (2) improving the robustness of the AO, (3) developing in-house AO expertise to maintain and troubleshoot the AO systems, (4) automating processes for efficient on-sky operation, (5) tracking performance metrics and cultivating accountability for on-sky AO performance, and (6) minimizing the operational risks for the ASMs. We present the status of these developments. LBTO continues its efforts to develop innovative technology. We explore the next phase of AO developments, including Agile Extreme Adaptive Optics (AgXAO) on the DX side of the LINC-NIRVANA optical bench to overcome the limitation imposed by varying and large atmospheric seeing at Mount Graham. AgXAO implementation includes the development of (1) a high-order, high-sensitivity wavefront sensor, (2) a high-density deformable mirror with 3000 actuators and next-generation ASM with about 950 actuators, (3) active optics integration, (4) vibration and wavefront piston control, (5) atmospheric turbulence measurements and weather forecast integration, and (6) a visible camera and an AO-corrected narrow-field fiber-coupled IFU spectrograph using one of the existing workhorse visible spectrographs. Developing AgXAO on the SX side, too, would enable Fizeau imaging in the visible wavelengths. AgXAO will also serve as a general-purpose high-contrast (and subsequently a Fizeau imaging) Testbed on LBT to test advanced wavefront control algorithms, including astrophotonics experiments, and machine learning algorithms with minimal impact on routine science operations. We propose developing AgXAO through student projects to train the next-generation scientists and engineers for the extremely large telescope (ELT) era. The ultimate goal is to push large aperture ground-based telescopes to their performance limits and make them competitive with space telescopes in terms of PSF stability and performance to enable breakthrough science.

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