Performing my first on-sky tests (in Hawaii at Keck Telescope)

As an adaptive optics (AO) researcher for ground-based telescopes, having the possibility to perform tests on-sky was a major accomplishment for me. These tests occurred in Hawaii in the Keck I telescope in February 2025, and I also had the opportunity to visit the Mauna Kea summit, where Keck and other telescopes are located. This summit, located at more than 4,000 meters of altitude, has a stunning view (it feels like we are on another planet).

Collaboration with Keck

From November to April, I have been working on a project on the Keck I telescope in Hawaii for a novel slow focus sensor using focal plane wavefront sensing, a project which is incorporated in the next tomographic AO system for Keck, known as KAPPA. In February, I went on-site to Hawaii for 10 days to perform some tests (bench and on-sky) and collect some data related to this project. I had previously analysed the data collected with promising results, and future steps are now being discussed along with Keck. Full operationalization of the novel tool is expected for 2025.

Next steps

After these tests, many promising results were obtained, namely with the on-sky tests, and more tests will be performed this year to make this new focus tool fully operational and ready to be used by astronomers. In addition, an article about this work is also expected to be written during this year.

This research is very important for tomographic AO systems that use laser guide stars, and can be extrapolated to future giant telescopes such as the future Extremely Large Telescope (ELT) with 40-meter diameter.