4D Tomography of turbulence in the atmosphere

A fundamentally new method of characterising thermal turbulence in the Earth atmosphere will be used to do 4D (spatial+time) turbulence tomography. This is achieved by observing about 200 stars simultaneously through a so-called Wave-Front Sensor (WFS), equipped with an advanced sensitive and fast-read-out detector that has recently become available. It is the combination of this new detector and our optical design that allows this new measurement. This experiment will be of utmost importance for advancing the use of adaptive optics on large ground-based astronomical telescopes, not the least the 39 meter Extremely Large Telescope, currently being constructed in Chile by the European Southern Observatory (ESO) of which Denmark is one of the member states.