2021
December 31st, 2021: The @BMCMirrors deformable mirror is now installed on the Robo-AO-2 carbon fiber bench.
December 23rd, 2021: We’re starting to assemble many of the Robo-AO-2 internal mechanical systems. Pictures are from yesterday and today in the lab.
November 8th, 2021: The new tertiary mirror exchanger for the UH2.2m telescope is being assembled and tested at IfA Hilo today. This unit will allow for rapid switching of instruments: Robo-AO-2, SNIFS and STAcam.
November 4th, 2021: Test fit of the Robo-AO-2 carbon fiber optical bench on the University of Hawaii 2.2-m telescope today. Robo-AO-2 will be at the telescope’s North bent Cassegrain focus position. Huge mahalo to Scotty, Mikey and Reid of the daycrew for making this happen!
November 3rd, 2021: Looking to pre-game the #astro2020? Check out one of astronomy’s rising stars, IfA’s @salamamaissa, who will be defending her dissertation at 2pm HST today. AO tech + science. Check out the presentation:
November 1st, 2021: The Robo-AO-2 carbon fiber optical bench arrived at IfA Hilo today. This bench will bolt directly to the UH 2.2m telescope. Positions of the optics, cameras and other opto-mechanics have been silkscreened on to the surface to aid with initial alignment.
October 21st, 2021: We’re looking for a postdoc to join our https://t.co/kcobtAH1s3 team @UHIfA. Contact the PI and apply at https://t.co/GDmbp5GWNZ to take on a science leadership role with the quickest astronomical adaptive optics system this side of the Orion-Cygnus Arm.
October 21st, 2021: Several of the UH88″ Robo-AO-2 sub-system components are now assembled in the IfA Hilo adaptive optics lab: the UV EMCCD camera, telescope simulator and calibration source, atmospheric dispersion corrector and lenslet exchanger.
October 21st, 2021: As part of the UH88″ robotization project, we’re replacing the single tertiary mirror with 2 of these just-delivered supermirrors. The coating is >99% reflective from the near-UV to the near infrared, it never oxidizes and is easy to clean!
July 29th, 2021: We’ve removed all components of the first generation Robo-AO system. Some of these parts will be used in the new Robo-AO-2 system, while others will go to the planned AO system for the telescope formerly known as Hōkū Keʻa at UH Hilo.
June 17th, 2021: Critical optics and mechanics for Robo-AO-2, a set of high precision off-axis parabolic mirrors and a carbon fiber breadboard for the telescope simulator sub-system, arrived at IfA Hilo today.
June 1st, 2021: Lead author and IfA graduate student, @SalamaMaissa, had her Large Adaptive optics Survey for Substellar Objects (LASSO) manuscript accepted for publication in the Astronomical Journal.
