Adaptive Optics Finally for Amateurs at SPIE Astro 2026

[00:00:07]Oh, take a look at that.

[00:00:08]Deformable mirrors. That looks kind of interesting.

[00:00:12]>> Yeah. So, uh deformable mirrors, uh it's it's a mirror that has actuators underneath the surface, so you can change the shape of the mirror.

[00:00:19]>> Okay.

[00:00:19]>> Uh so, relevant to this conference, why that's useful, um I don't know if you've ever um taken a picture, somebody waves.

[00:00:28]>> Yeah, yeah.

[00:00:28]>> And your picture gets blurry, right?

[00:00:29]>> Yeah, motion blur, yeah.

[00:00:30]>> Uh now, have you ever looked up at the stars at the night?

[00:00:32]>> Uh a lot, yeah.

[00:00:33]>> Okay, so very pretty, right?

[00:00:35]>> Yeah.

[00:00:35]>> Twinkling, beautiful.

[00:00:37]When you try to take a picture of anything in the stars or around the stars, that twinkling is motion.

[00:00:42]>> Yeah, that was very cool.

[00:00:43]>> And so, what you need to do is you need to take the twinkle out of the stars.

[00:00:48]>> Yeah.

[00:00:48]>> Uh so, that you can get a clean image when you're looking at exoplanets, when you're looking at extrasolar, yeah.

[00:00:53]>> By having actuators under the surface of this mirror, uh you can bounce incoming light from your exoplanet off of the mirror, >> Yeah.

[00:01:00]>> change the shape of the mirror to account for that twinkle, that movement through the atmosphere that's changing the the light >> In real time.

[00:01:07]>> So, how is that How is that I mean, how do you measure that?

[00:01:10]Because you must measure it before the light hits the mirror.

[00:01:14]>> Yeah, so they they shoot a laser up into the sky that fluoresces off the stratosphere or the ionosphere, and then that fluorescent light comes back down and is traveling through the same air that your smaller light image is coming through.

[00:01:28]And so, you correct for that that amount of atmosphere.

[00:01:30]>> So, >> uh you can measure that on what's called a wavefront sensor. It's a camera with a bunch of lenses in front of it that >> Yeah.

[00:01:37]>> kind of moves the beam around for you.

[00:01:38]>> But, how quickly can you like how many adjustments a second can you can you do?

[00:01:42]>> Uh yeah, so our devices can move between We have customers moving with up to a 20 kHz.

[00:01:48]>> Okay, wow.

[00:01:49]>> that is often camera limited, that is uh often with exceptions. I would say 5 to 10 kHz is more common, and two is like very easy.

[00:01:58]>> Because I guess you would need the same like when you when you measure the light from the laser, you're going to need the same refresh rate on the camera there.

[00:02:05]So you're going to need extremely fast optics.

[00:02:08]>> Yeah, so so the camera would just need to be very fast. So that's then that's why most people are more limited down to kind of 5 kHz, 10 kHz range.

[00:02:14]>> Yeah, yeah, makes sense.

[00:02:15]>> But by moving these in 5 10 kHz range, you're moving so fast that your system is kind of it's instantaneous to your system.

[00:02:21]>> So the limiting factor is how quickly you can actually measure the light from your laser and not how quickly these mirrors can actually do it.

[00:02:28]>> For most groups, that's the current limitation.

[00:02:30]>> Yeah.

[00:02:30]>> We're hoping that people get to the point that these are the limitation and then we have a faster version ready to go.

[00:02:36]>> Okay.

[00:02:37]So again, this is probably something you would be using for extremely long optics like when you're looking at and such you say exoplanets and >> Exoplanets are the main astronomy use, yeah.

[00:02:45]>> Yeah, yeah.

[00:02:46]>> So I'm Diego Almendra from France. I'm working for Imagine Optic.

[00:02:51]>> Yeah.

[00:02:51]>> And so at Imagine Optic, we are developing adaptive optic system.

[00:02:55]Well, the idea is to help amateur astronomer to improve the resolution of their images >> Okay.

[00:03:02]>> with this system which is able to compensate in real time for atmospheric turbulence.

[00:03:08]Which is the main cause >> Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[00:03:10]>> of resolution and tip tilt.

[00:03:13]>> So you do you could so even for amateur astronomers, you can do that in real time?

[00:03:18]>> Yes.

[00:03:18]>> And how how does that work? You shoot lasers up or >> So here, no no need for laser.

[00:03:24]>> No lasers, okay.

[00:03:25]>> Here you mount Ciao, that is the name of the system >> Yeah.

[00:03:29]>> uh onto the telescope.

[00:03:30]>> Yeah.

[00:03:31]>> Then inside you have a wavefront sensor to measure optical aberration.

[00:03:35]>> Okay.

[00:03:36]>> So atmospheric turbulence effect on the light.

[00:03:39]You have a deformable mirror which is able to correct those deformation of the light.

[00:03:45]>> Okay.

[00:03:45]>> And so then you re-image at the focal plane, a new focal plane, the same as your telescope at the output here.

[00:03:52]>> Yeah, yeah, yeah. And you put your scientific camera or your eyepiece.

[00:03:57]Uh and so you need a software to close the loop.

[00:04:00]>> Yeah, yeah, that makes sense.

[00:04:01]>> we talk in adaptive optics. You close the loop. Um and that's typically the idea. So it can works on stars, can works on planets, uh on deep space imaging.

[00:04:12]>> Yeah.

[00:04:12]>> And the idea is to have an affordable system because AO historically was reserved for >> huge telescope with computer telescope.

[00:04:21]But with CHAO, you can work with telescope from 40 cm to 1 m. So still large telescopes.

[00:04:28]>> So down to 40 cm aperture.

[00:04:30]>> Yeah.

[00:04:31]>> Okay, wow. That's >> it for from 40 cm to 1 m. It works perfectly for this range of diameters.

[00:04:38]>> And so you just basically put it on where you would normally put your camera on and then you put your own camera on the side.

[00:04:43]>> Exactly.

[00:04:44]>> And you're good to go.

[00:04:45]>> Yeah.

[00:04:46]That's the idea. Plug and play AO system.

[00:04:48]>> Plug and play. Straight in. I mean, do you need to uh laptop to run the computations next to it or does it all It's all on device?

[00:04:56]>> The system comes with a very powerful uh la- uh computer, which is not a laptop, no screen, >> No, but >> but to run the computation very fast because atmospheric turbulence are really fast. Exactly. So you let this box PC box next to the system. And so then you can connect with your laptop next to it, but from anywhere else in the world and you just connect to this server. So you can be next to it >> Or or beyond some >> in another country. You just send commands and use this software remotely.

[00:05:27]>> Okay, wow.

[00:05:29]That's impressive.

[00:05:30]>> Thank you.

[00:05:31]>> Because I've never seen I've only seen these adaptive optic systems where they you know you shoot a laser up and you look at the light that comes back and stuff like that. But actually doing it in just a contained box, that's very impressive.

[00:05:42]>> Here you need a a bright object, but not a generated through laser or artificial one. You just need a bright star or bright planet.

[00:05:51]>> Wow. Thank you very much.

[00:05:53]>> You're welcome.

[00:05:54]>> So, it's vacuum deposition. So, it's under deep vacuum. [music] So, there's different technologies, but it's basically alternating reflect >> [music]