First light with ORKID, a pathfinder diffraction-limited visible-light camera at the WM Keck Observatory

Le résumé fourni par la source

The ORCAS Keck Instrument Demonstrator (ORKID) is a visible-light diffraction-limited camera that was installed behind the WMKO Keck II AO system in the fall of 2022. Its primary purpose is to act as a pathfinder instrument for adaptive optics-fed visible-light imaging at Keck, with consideration for upcoming AO upgrades and future possibilities. ORKID is diffraction-limited down to 650nm and can operate with millisecond frame rates, enabling frame selection and frame registration in post-processing. Here we provide an overview of the commissioning of the instrument and describe its on-sky performance. Using Keck’s current AO deformable mirror, and its Shack-Hartmann and pyramid wavefront sensors, we are able to achieve images with point-spread function cores of 15-17 milliarcseconds FWHM. We report here on early observations obtained within the first year of operations and we provide a gallery of scientific objects of interest with ORKID, as a preview for future capabilities.

Ce résumé expose les affirmations des auteurs. BNTIC ne l’interprète pas comme une validation indépendante des résultats.