Abstract

A commercially manufactured excimer laser was used to project a focused laser beam into the atmosphere to altitudes in the range of 10 to 30 km. Rayleigh-backscattered light from a slice of the illuminated column, when imaged in a ground-based telescope, produced an image that is essentially identical to that of a natural star. This experiment demonstrates the ease of producing bright and sharply focused laser guide stars at 351 nm. Such laser guide stars are ideal for guiding astronomical telescopes equipped with adaptive optics.

© 1992 Optical Society of America

Experimental validation of a technique to measure tilt from a laser guide star

Mikhail S. Belen’kii, Stephen J. Karis, James M. Brown, and Robert Q. Fugate
Opt. Lett. 24(10) 637-639 (1999)

Design, layout, and early results of a feasibility experiment for sodium-layer laser-guide-star adaptive optics

C. E. Max, K. Avicola, J. M. Brase, H. W. Friedman, H. D. Bissinger, J. Duff, D. T. Gavel, J. A. Horton, R. Kiefer, J. R. Morris, S. S. Olivier, R. W. Presta, D. A. Rapp, J. T. Salmon, and K. E. Waltjen
J. Opt. Soc. Am. A 11(2) 813-824 (1994)

Optimizing Rayleigh laser guide star range-gate depth during initial loop closing

T. J. Morris and R. W. Wilson
Opt. Lett. 32(14) 2004-2006 (2007)

Sodium-layer laser-guide-star experimental results

K. Avicola, J. M. Brase, J. R. Morris, H. D. Bissinger, J. M. Duff, H. W. Friedman, D. T. Gavel, C. E. Max, S. S. Olivier, R. W. Presta, D. A. Rapp, J. T. Salmon, and K. E. Waltjen
J. Opt. Soc. Am. A 11(2) 825-831 (1994)

Focus anisoplanatism: a limit to the determination of tip-tilt with laser guide stars

Christopher R. Neyman
Opt. Lett. 21(22) 1806-1808 (1996)