PML: a generalized monitor of atmospheric turbulence profile with high vertical resolution.

The future generation of extremely large telescopes will be certainly equipped with wide-field adaptive optics systems. All the components of such adaptive optics systems have to be precisely specified, and most of the technical specifications are related to atmospheric turbulence parameters, particularly the profile of the refractive index structure constant 2(). The monitor Profiler of Moon Limb (PML) for the extraction of the 2() profile with high vertical resolution for nighttime and daytime conditions by the observation of the moon limb or sun edge has been developed and is now routinely exploited at the Calern Observatory on the French Riviera.

Optical turbulence in confined media. Part II:first results using the INTENSE instrument.

Optical system performances can be affected by local optical turbulence created by its surrounding environment (telescope dome, clean room, or atmospheric layer). This paper follows a previous one introducing the INdoor TurbulENce SEnsor (INTENSE) instrument for optical turbulence characterization in a local area by exploitation of laser beam angle-of-arrival fluctuations. After a brief summary of the theoretical background, we present in this part results obtained using the INTENSE instrument in various optical integration testing clean rooms and telescope domes, each with specific air behavior conditions.

Optical turbulence in confined media: part I, the indoor turbulence sensor instrument.

Optical system performances can be affected by local optical turbulence created by its surrounding environment (telescope dome, clean room, atmospheric surface layer). We present our new instrument INdoor TurbulENce SEnsor (INTENSE) dedicated to this local optical turbulence characterization. INTENSE consists of using several parallel laser beams separated by non-redundant baselines between 0.

Experimental confirmation of long-memory correlations in star-wander data.

In this Letter we have analyzed the temporal correlations of the angle-of-arrival fluctuations of stellar images. Experimentally measured data were carefully examined by implementing multifractal detrended fluctuation analysis. This algorithm is able to discriminate the presence of fractal and multifractal structures in recorded time sequences.

Comparison of measurements of the outer scale of turbulence by three different techniques.

We have made simultaneous and nearly simultaneous measurements of L0, the outer scale of turbulence, at the Palomar Observatory by using three techniques: angle-of-arrival covariance measurements with the Generalized Seeing Monitor (GSM), differential-image-motion measurements with the adaptive-optics system on the Hale 5-m telescope, and fringe speed measurements with the Palomar Testbed Interferometer (PTI). The three techniques give consistent results, an outer scale of approximately 10-20 m, despite the fact that the spatial scales of the three instruments vary from 1 m for the GSM to 100 m for the PTI.