This paper presents an overview of the SDSS-V Local Volume Mapper (LVM) telescope system. LVM is one of three surveys that form the fifth generation of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, and it employs a coordinated network of four, 16-cm telescopes feeding three fiber spectrographs at the Las Campanas Observatory. The goal is to spectrally map more than 4000 square degrees of the Galactic plane with 37” spatial resolution and R~4000 spectral resolution over the wavelength range 360-980nm. This corresponds to roughly 50 million individual spectra, which will reveal how distinct gaseous environments within our Galaxy interact with the stellar population, producing the large-scale interstellar medium that we observe.
Accurately mapping and calibrating a substantial portion of the sky in this way requires a unique type of telescope. Each of the four units consists of a two-mirror siderostat in alt-alt configuration feeding an optical breadboard. This produces a fixed, stable focal plane for the fiber IFU and bundle. One telescope hosts the science IFU, while two others observe adjacent dark fields to calibrate geocoronal emission. The fourth telescope makes rapid observations of bright stars to compensate telluric absorption. The entrance slits of the spectrographs intersperse the fibers from all three types of telescope, producing truly simultaneous science and calibration exposures.
After roughly four years of design, development, construction, testing, and commissioning, the LVM telescopes entered regular survey operations in late 2023. We summarize the entire LVM telescope project, from input scientific requirements to the actual performance achieved on-sky.
Multiconjugate adaptive optics (MCAO) promises uniform wide-field atmospheric correction. However, partial illumination of the layers at which the deformable mirrors are conjugated results in incomplete information about the full turbulence field. We report on a working solution to this difficulty for layer-oriented MCAO, including laboratory and on-sky demonstration with the LINC-NIRVANA instrument at the Large Binocular Telescope. This approach has proven to be simple and stable.
At the ground layer, the footprints of the stars overlap completely and every star footprint illuminates the entire pupil-plane. However, for a higher layer, the footprints do not overlap completely and each star illuminates a different region of the conjugated plane. Lack of stars, therefore, results in some regions in this "meta-pupil"-plane not being illuminated, implying no information regarding the aberrations in these areas. The optimum way of correcting the high layer, given this limited information, is the crux of the "partial illumination issue". In this paper, we propose a solution for this issue and discuss laboratory results from the aligned LN bench in the lab. Currently, LN has completed the re-integration and re-alignment at LBT. In early June 2016, we tested our partial illumination algorithm in the instrument’s final configuration in the LBT mountain lab, using simulated stars. On sky testing will begin in late 2016.
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