Sergio R. Restaino

Micromachined electrostatic membrane mirrors have been in use for several years in active and adaptive optics applications. We introduce a deformable mirror with small static aberrations and resistant to damage during electrostatic snap-down in an architecture designed so that a multi-layer dielectric coatings that can be applied before the mirror is released. We also make laboratory performance measurements and produce a closed loop control algorithm.

The use of liquid crystal devices for wavefront control has been suggested and implemented by several authors. Our group has been at the forefront of the development of this technology. In this paper we report some preliminary experimental results on the use of Nematic based liquid crystal devices. Several experimental efforts have been carried out in the past few months. One of the main aims was to characterize a new devices that uses dual frequency nematic material.

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Within the last decade, the declassification of adaptive optics techniques and systems developed for defense purposes opened new opportunities to the astronomical community. Since the military resolution requirements are not qualitatively different from the astronomical ones, astronomers may profit from the quite sizable investments already made. On the other hand, the astronomical observations are much more demanding than the military ones with respect to the required accuracy, stability and sensitivity. In 1994, after contacts made during an adaptive optics meeting in Munich, we started a joint project to observe the ejected matter from the luminous blue variable (LBV) P-Cygni with the AMOS compensated imaging system (CIS). In this paper we describe the problems encountered and the experience gained in more than two years of operations with CIS. The satisfactory results obtained so far prompted us to plan a more ambitious program. We aim to profit from the acquired know-how for preparing a proposal of astronomical observations designed in such a way of taking the utmost advantage of the capabilities of the new USAF AEOS adaptive optics system.