Into the Test Tower!

Today we raised our hexapod-mounted adaptive secondary mirror (ASM) into the Arcetri test tower in Florence, Italy.  The large tower will allow us to operate the secondary at the same focal length and optical conjugates as the Magellan telescope in Chile.  We’ll use this test setup to interferometrically test the performance of our ASM and to close the loop on our full AO system.

The Arcetri Test Tower
The Arcetri Test Tower
The concave ellipsoidal ASM with a retroreflector mounted at its short conjugate is raised into the tower.
The concave ellipsoidal ASM with a retroreflector mounted at its short conjugate is raised into the tower.
A grad student magnified by the F/1.1 ASM
A grad student magnified by the F/1.1 ASM
Armando Riccardi trapped inside the looking glass!
Armando Riccardi trapped inside the looking glass!
The Ring anyone?
The Ring anyone?