Advanced Rayleigh Guided Ground Layer Adaptive Optics System (ARGOS) is a multi-star adaptive optics system which is built for use with the

Large Binocular Telescope The Large Binocular Telescope (LBT) is an optical telescope for astronomy located on Mount Graham, in the Pinaleno Mountains of southeastern Arizona, United States. It is a part of the Mount Graham International Observatory. When using both ...

(LBT). With ARGOS, both sides of the LBT will be equipped with a multi-laser beacon system and corresponding wavefront sensors. The artificial beacons are created by

Rayleigh scattering Rayleigh scattering ( ) is the scattering or deflection of light, or other electromagnetic radiation, by particles with a size much smaller than the wavelength of the radiation. For light frequencies well below the resonance frequency of the scat ...

the Earth's

atmosphere An atmosphere () is a layer of gases that envelop an astronomical object, held in place by the gravity of the object. A planet retains an atmosphere when the gravity is great and the temperature of the atmosphere is low. A stellar atmosph ...

using high power pulsed green

lasers A laser is a device that emits light through a process of optical amplification based on the stimulated emission of electromagnetic radiation. The word ''laser'' originated as an acronym for light amplification by stimulated emission of radi ...

. The purpose of ARGOS is to generate six artificial laser guides stars to correct the ground layer turbulence above the LBT mirrors. This will decrease the distortions induced by the atmospheric turbulence, and therefore the imaging and spectroscopic capability of

LUCIFER The most common meaning for Lucifer in English is as a name for the Devil in Christian theology. He appeared in the King James Version of the Bible in Isaiah and before that in the Vulgate (the late-4th-century Latin translation of the Bib ...

, the LBT spectrograph.

References

{{Reflist Astronomical instruments