Conceptual Design for a User-Friendly Adaptive Optics System at Lick Observatory

Abstract

In this paper, we present a conceptual design for a general-purpose adaptive optics (AO) system, usable with all Cassegrain facility instruments on the 3 meter Shane telescope at the University of California's Lick Observatory located on Mt. Hamilton near San Jose, California. The overall design goal for this system is to take the sodium-layer laser guide star adaptive optics technology out of the demonstration stage and to build a user-friendly astronomical tool. The emphasis will be on ease of calibration, improved stability and operational simplicity in order to allow the system to be run routinely by observatory staff.