LGS AO Readiness for 05B AOWG meeting February 4, 2004 Keck LGS AO team

Presentation Sequence Readiness for general observing Science Engineering (including milestone 5 success criteria) Operations Current plans for 05A & 05B Issues for AOWG Summary

Shared-risk Science

Engineering Science Purpose: to demonstrate science capabilities & to test the system Egg nebula microns imaging of the nebula. Highest angular resolution to date of the nebula. Study of dust extinction and dust model for 2”x2”. Galactic center L-band narrow field: LGSAO showing better performance than NGSAO for faint NGS. A flare episode was observed & an unknown source was detected. K-band wide field: study of young stars in a 80x80arcsec fov. Wide field AO imaging is made possible! GOODS field Deep imaging on a ~40”x40” from GOODS-S field. >60 min integration with homogeneous data quality (SR?). Study of the AGNs. + 2 brown dwarf targets & Patroclus

Science Performance Summary SR ~30% in Kp on-axis for R<16 SR degradation off-axis Isokinetic angle, TSS field curvature & TSS alignment errors FOV: 40” any PA; 70” for some PA SR degrades with fainter R TT STRAP performance LBWFS model for high order Yet need accurate focusing... Impact from LGS image quality and return? ~1.5”x2.0”, R~11 with 10W Low overall observing efficiency For R~15, overall acq. overhead = 15min For R> 16.5: overhead = min Very much still in a learning curve for operations LTC, laser power, DAR performance, etc

04B Engineering Nights 9 nights total: 3 lost to weather, 1 to laser burn, 1 to new problem(s) that had to be debugged.

Milestone 5 Success Criteria

Shared-risk Science Time Lost Summary: 2 nights lost to weather Switched to NGS for 4.3h of remaining 32h 18% LGS faults (5.7h) + 5% other Top 4 faults: 2.5h acquis/dither Largely resolved. 1.5h laser burn. Resolved. 1.4h ACS. Ongoing. 0.4h boresite. Implement switch. LTCS collisions (0.5h) Lost time doesn’t reflect the efficiency hit!

Operations Status LGS AO operations 1 AO operator + 1 AO LBWFS/optimizer 1 Support Astronomer (NIRC2) 1 software eng. + 1 AO troubleshooting for emergency Smooth science run preparation (1 day for each person) Rest of effort mostly focused on development and integration of LGSAO. Laser operation Personnel: laser specialist (Lafon), two ½-time technicians (Melcher & Mouser), part-time EE (Chin) + 2 laser spotters on staff. Current observing staff at summit: Mouser 2-10pm, Lafon 3pm-3am, Melcher 10pm-6am. Can monitor laser completely from HQ. Mostly hands-free operation. Training matrix produced for techs. Need to implement.

LGS Operations Team (LOT) Integrating the LGSAO operations inside the Observatory operations (vs AO group) Kick-off meeting in Dec. 04 Work on policies (weather, propagation, backup) Define an operational model: Task lists from pre-run meeting with observers, to coordinate with US Space Command, and data backup Design ops model and evaluate effort level vs resources More staff for operations: Involve/train more SA to support NGSAO/LGSAO Involve more software and sys. admin support for LGSAO Define and build operation infrastructure Help define and build observers and operators tools Configuration Management for LGSAO Support integration with science instruments (NIRC2/OSIRIS)

05A Plans - Observing 2 LGS nights: 6 eng, 3 eng w/OSIRIS, 14 shared-risk science

05A Plans - Engineering Complete Milestone 5 success criteria + Milestone 6:

05A Plans – Eng & Ops Optimize LBWFS/STRAP performance for faint star Minimize observing overhead Optimize off-axis observations Validate DAR LGSAO characterization effort!!! Complete integration with NIRC2 Integration with OSIRIS + submit engineering papers LGS AO overview LGS AO performance

05B Plans SSC has asked CARA to evaluate what it would take to support 30 nights in 05B 6 engineering nights requested Need to define success criteria for milestone 7 & 8, 1 st non-shared risk science & operations handover requirements review.

05B Advertised Science Performance  Low risk: Observing modes which have been demonstrated but may not yet be fully characterized.  1. Target <60" from TT reference  2. TT reference R<18 in VA mode (eq. PA mode on-axis) in good seeing  3. TT reference R<16.5 in PA mode, if pupil rotation is <2°/min  4. Nodding or dithering up to 30" (no faster than every 2 min)  5. NIRC2 single frame integration time limited by effects of DAR (eg <60s at low elevations)  Medium risk: Observing modes requiring hardware or software changes, which we plan to commission by start of 05B.  1. TT reference R<19 in PA or VA mode  2. Observations requiring <20 mas positioning accuracy on NIRC2 (e.g. spectroscopy)  3. Observations requiring DAR tracking (eg. integration >60s at low elevations)  4. Target with a binary TT reference with separation <2.0"  5. Observations with bad seeing &/or telescope windshake

05B Advertised Science Performance  High risk: Challenging observing modes which may be commissioned by start of 05B.  1. Observations for which nodding/dithering period is <1 min (may apply to Lp & M imaging)  2. Target for which the TT reference has a proper motion of >2 arcmin/hr (due to maximum TT offload rate to telescope of 0.1" every 3s)  Not offered for 05B:  1. Target >70" from TT reference  2. TT reference R>19.3  3. Differential tracking between the TT reference and target

Issues - Science Strategy More LGSAO or better LGSAO? More routine R~16 OR more higher risk R>18 Where is the balance between more LGSAO nights and higher performance? Optimizing system performance for R>18 could require hardware changes Operation reliability vs performance improvement? What performance criteria give us the best science? NIRC2 vs OSIRIS Effort to document the NIRC2 wide field performance? Focus on integration with OSIRIS? Lesser priority on NIRC2 spectroscopy?

Summary LGS AO is proving to be a very valuable science capability. Although significant progress has been made, the system is still under development & not yet well characterized. We welcome the AOWG thoughts on where to focus our efforts for maximum science benefit.