Outputs (60)

Scintillation correction on the VLT using tomographic wavefront sensing (2025)
Journal Article
Hartley, K. E., Haguenauer, P., Wilson, R. W., Morris, T. J., & Osborn, J. (2025). Scintillation correction on the VLT using tomographic wavefront sensing. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 541(1), 359-366. https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/staf1010

The development of adaptive optics (AO) to correct the effects of optical turbulence has made ground-based telescopes increasingly competitive with those in space. However, AO cannot correct for atmospheric scintillation noise, which severely limits... Read More about Scintillation correction on the VLT using tomographic wavefront sensing.

Laser guide stars as comparison stars: correcting scintillation noise (2025)
Journal Article
Hartley, K. E., Calia, D. B., Bustos, F. P., Centrone, M., Jenkins, D., Wilson, R. W., & Osborn, J. (2025). Laser guide stars as comparison stars: correcting scintillation noise. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 539(3), 1955-1963. https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/staf614

The Earth’s atmosphere severely limits ground-based high precision photometry. Whilst adaptive optics can be used to improve image resolution, intensity fluctuations due to scintillation and atmospheric transparency variations remain. Scintillation n... Read More about Laser guide stars as comparison stars: correcting scintillation noise.

Exploring atmospheric optical turbulence: observations across zenith angles (2024)
Journal Article
Beesley, L. F., Osborn, J., Wilson, R., Farley, O. J. D., Griffiths, R., & Love, G. D. (2024). Exploring atmospheric optical turbulence: observations across zenith angles. Applied Optics, 63(16), E48. https://doi.org/10.1364/ao.519063

We present measurements of the atmospheric optical turbulence as a function of zenith angle using two identical instruments, Shack-Hartmann Image Motion Monitors (SHIMMs), to measure atmospheric parameters concurrently. One instrument was pointed nea... Read More about Exploring atmospheric optical turbulence: observations across zenith angles.

A comparison of next-generation turbulence profiling instruments at Paranal (2024)
Journal Article
Griffiths, R., Bardou, L., Butterley, T., Osborn, J., Wilson, R., Bustos, E., …Otarola, A. (2024). A comparison of next-generation turbulence profiling instruments at Paranal. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 529(1), 320 - 330. https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stae434

A six-night optical turbulence monitoring campaign has been carried at Cerro Paranal observatory in February and March, 2023 to facilitate the development and characterisation of two novel atmospheric site monitoring instruments - the ring-image next... Read More about A comparison of next-generation turbulence profiling instruments at Paranal.

Optimized temporal binning of comparison star measurements for differential photometry (2023)
Journal Article
Hartley, K. E., & Wilson, R. W. (2023). Optimized temporal binning of comparison star measurements for differential photometry. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 526(3), 3482-3494. https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stad2964

Ground-based, high precision observations of the light curves of objects such as transiting exoplanets rely on the application of differential photometry. The flux of the target object is measured relative to a comparison star in the same field, allo... Read More about Optimized temporal binning of comparison star measurements for differential photometry.

Continuous daytime and nighttime forecast of atmospheric optical turbulence from numerical weather prediction models (2023)
Journal Article
Quatresooz, F., Griffiths, R., Bardou, L., Wilson, R., Osborn, J., Vanhoenacker-Janvier, D., & Oestges, C. (2023). Continuous daytime and nighttime forecast of atmospheric optical turbulence from numerical weather prediction models. Optics Express, 31(21), 33850-33872. https://doi.org/10.1364/oe.500090

Future satellite-to-ground optical communication systems will benefit from accurate forecasts of atmospheric optical turbulence; namely for site selection, for the routing and the operation of optical links, and for the design of optical communicatio... Read More about Continuous daytime and nighttime forecast of atmospheric optical turbulence from numerical weather prediction models.

Optical sparse telescope arrays and scintillation noise (2023)
Journal Article
Hartley, K. E., Farley, O. J. D., Townson, M. J., Osborn, J., & Wilson, R. W. (2023). Optical sparse telescope arrays and scintillation noise. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 526(1), 1235-1245. https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stad2835

Fresnel propagation of starlight after it passes through high altitude turbulence in the Earth’s atmosphere results in random fluctuations of the intensity at ground level, known as scintillation. This effect adds random noise to photometric measurem... Read More about Optical sparse telescope arrays and scintillation noise.

The 24hSHIMM: a continuous day and night turbulence monitor for optical communications (2023)
Presentation / Conference Contribution
Griffiths, R., Osborn, J., Farley, O., Butterley, T., Townson, M., & Wilson, R. (2023, January). The 24hSHIMM: a continuous day and night turbulence monitor for optical communications. Presented at Free-Space Laser Communications XXXV, San Francisco, United States

We present the 24-hour Shack-Hartmann Image Motion Monitor (24hSHIMM), the first truly continuous, 24-hour optical turbulence monitor. Atmospheric optical turbulence is a significant limitation for free-space optical communications and other technolo... Read More about The 24hSHIMM: a continuous day and night turbulence monitor for optical communications.

First On-Sky Demonstration of a Scintillation Correction technique using Tomographic Wavefront Sensing (2023)
Journal Article
Hartley, K. E., Farley, O. J., Townson, M. J., Osborn, J., & Wilson, R. (2023). First On-Sky Demonstration of a Scintillation Correction technique using Tomographic Wavefront Sensing. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 520(3), 4134-4146. https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stad420

Scintillation noise significantly limits high precision ground-based photometry of bright stars. In this paper we present the first ever on-sky demonstration of scintillation correction. The technique uses tomographic wavefront sensing to estimate th... Read More about First On-Sky Demonstration of a Scintillation Correction technique using Tomographic Wavefront Sensing.

SHIMM: a versatile seeing monitor for astronomy (2023)
Journal Article
Perera, S., Wilson, R. W., Butterley, T., Osborn, J., Farley, O. J., & Laidlaw, D. J. (2023). SHIMM: a versatile seeing monitor for astronomy. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 520(4), 5475-5486. https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stad339

Characterization of atmospheric optical turbulence is crucial for the design and operation of modern ground-based optical telescopes. In particular, the effective application of adaptive optics correction on large and extremely large telescopes relie... Read More about SHIMM: a versatile seeing monitor for astronomy.