Adaptive optics systems at the Large Binocular Telescope: status, upgrades, and improvements

The Large Binocular Telescope has two adaptive secondary mirrors (ASMs). Each of these feed four focal stations, three of which are equipped with wavefront sensors (WFS) to provide the signal for adaptive optics (AO) correction. These are (1) FLAO - the on-axis natural guide star system feeding the two LUCI NIR imagers/spectrographs, (2) ARGOS - the ground-layer adaptive optics laser-guide star system, which shares the same port as FLAO, (3) LBTI - the 2-11 micron Fizeau/Nulling interferometer, and (4) Linc-Nirvana - the MCAO system. In this paper, we report on the current status of the AO facilities, FLAO, ARGOS, and the ASMs as well as the (1) detector and performance upgrades to FLAO and LBTI wavefront sensors, i.e. the SOUL project, and (2) improvements to the ASMs’ electronics. We also present improvements to the FLAO operation and checkout procedures.