Development of a device for measuring turbulence in the air above telescopes that observe the sun

开发用于测量观测太阳的望远镜上方空气湍流的装置

• 批准号: 1607921
• 负责人: Deqing Ren
• 金额: $ 39.34万
• 依托单位: The University Corporation, Northridge
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Continuing Grant
• 财政年份: 2016
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2016-09-01 至 2021-08-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1607921&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Development; device; measuring; turbulence; air

Measuring the turbulence in the atmosphere at different altitudes or "heights" above telescope observing sites allows astronomers to correct for the blurring of images that this turbulence produces. This blurring occurs when observing stars and galaxies at night, but also when observing the star nearest to the earth, the Sun, during the day. The principal investigator (PI) of this proposal, along with a graduate student and a post-doctoral scholar, will build a portable unit that can be used to measure the turbulence "profile" above any observatory. The instrument will be used specifically with telescopes that observe the sun. The device will be tested at solar telescopes at the Sacramento Peak and Kitt Peak observatories, and eventually at the U.S.'s newest facility, the Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope, DKIST, in Hawaii. The PI's institution, California State University Northridge (CSUN), is an undergraduate teaching institution with modest internal support for research; it is also a Hispanic Serving Institution (HSI) due to the large fraction of under-represented minority undergraduates served.The PI aims to develop a portable seeing profiler for use at solar observatories. The device will measure the profile of atmospheric turbulence as a function of altitude (up to 30 km) above the observing site. The instrument comprises off-the-shelf components and two small, 10 cm telescopes that can be transported to any solar observatory. Knowledge of the atmospheric seeing conditions is crucial to the performance of solar adaptive optics (AO) systems. Existing seeing profiler techniques use large telescopes with diameters of 1.2 meters or more and need access to the sky over many months. The low-cost portable system proposed here should thus alleviate some of these issue. Currently, relatively little is known about the daytime seeing profile on many of the world's solar telescope sites. A prototype device has already been built and tested; for the new instrument modest funding is requested to purchase mechanical parts and two scientific CMOS cameras, to assemble the equipment, to develop the associated software, and finally to test the set-up at Sacramento Peak and at the DKIST site in Hawaii.

测量望远镜观察站点上方不同高度或“高度”处的大气中的湍流使天文学家可以校正这种湍流产生的图像的模糊。这种模糊发生在夜间观察恒星和星系时，而且在白天观察到最接近地球，太阳的恒星时。该提案的主要研究人员（PI）以及研究生和博士后学者将建立一个可移植单元，可用于测量任何观测站高于任何观测站的湍流“概况”。该仪器将专门用于观察太阳的望远镜。该设备将在萨克拉曼多峰（Sacramento Peak）和基特峰（Kitt Peak）观测站的太阳能望远镜上进行测试，并最终在美国的最新设施，Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope，DKIST，DKIST，夏威夷。 PI的机构，加利福尼亚州立大学诺斯里奇（CSUN）是一家本科教学机构，内部对研究的支持适度；由于服务不足的少数群体本科生的大部分，这也是西班牙裔服务机构（HSI）。该设备将测量大气湍流的轮廓，这是观测位置上方高度（最大30 km）的函数。该仪器包括现成的组件和两个小的10厘米望远镜，可以运输到任何太阳天文台。 对大气观察条件的了解对于太阳能自适应光学（AO）系统的性能至关重要。现有的看到剖面技术使用大型望远镜，直径为1.2米或更多，并且需要在数月内进入天空。因此，这里提出的低成本便携式系统应减轻其中一些问题。目前，关于白天在世界许多太阳能望远镜网站上看到的个人资料的了解鲜为人知。原型设备已经构建和测试。为了新的仪器，要求谦虚的资金购买机械零件和两个科学的CMOS摄像机，以组装设备，开发相关的软件，最后在萨克拉曼多峰和夏威夷的DKIST站点测试设置。

项目成果

Global optimization-based reference star differential imaging for high-contrast exoplanet imaging survey

• DOI: 10.1093/mnras/stab022
• 发表时间: 2021-02
• 期刊: Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
• 影响因子: 4.8
• 作者: D. Ren;Yili Chen