Public call for tenders for the acquisition of three deformable mirrors (DMs) for the MCAO demonstration bank. Candidates shall submit their proposals before 19 September 2019.
A public call for tenders for the acquisition of three deformable mirrors (DM) for the MCAO demonstration bank (650,000 €) has been recently published throught the official Tenders Portal of the INSTITUTO DE ASTROFÍSICA DE CANARIAS.
The European Solar Telescope (EST) will be equipped with an MCAO system to provide excellent image correction within a one-arcminute field. A demonstrator of solar MCAO with similar requirements as the EST is being designed at IAC headquarters.
This bench will test new and existing concepts for solar MCAO, as, e.g., the integration of neuronal networks in the reconstruction process. The figure above shows the technical concept of the bench in one of the several configurations possible:
- A high-resolution image of the Sun will be created and perturbed by a turbulence simulator with different phase screens placed at different heights.
- MCAO correction will be performed by
- DM0: one pupil DM
- DM1 and DM2: two altitude DMs.
- Two wide-field wavefront sensors (LOWFS, HOWFS) will be used to perform the tomography.
- A scientific camera will evaluate the performance within a one-arcminute field.
The bench is currently under construction. Construction and alignment of the system is expected to be finished in the coming year, though first results from completed modules will be available sooner.
The currrent public tender announcement is related to the acquisition of the three deformable mirrors mentioned above (DM0, DM1 and DM2). The available budget for purchasing the three items is 650.000 €.
Candidates shall submit their proposals before 19 September 2019 (CLOSED).
All the relevant documentation can be found at IAC's Tenders Portal.