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Register a new userCharacterisation of the ground layer of turbulence at Paranal using a robotic SLODAR system
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We describe the implementation of a robotic SLODAR instrument at the Cerro Paranal observatory. The instrument measures the vertical profile of the optical atmospheric turbulence strength, in 8 resolution elements, to a maximum altitude ranging between 100 m and 500 m. We present statistical results of measurements of the turbulence profile on a total of 875 nights between 2014 and 2018. The vertical profile of the ground layer of turbulence is very varied, but in the median case most of the turbulence strength in the ground layer is concentrated within the first 50 m altitude, with relatively weak turbulence at higher altitudes up to 500 m. We find good agreement between measurements of the seeing angle from the SLODAR and from the Paranal DIMM seeing monitor, and also for seeing values extracted from the Shack-Hartmann active optics sensor of VLT UT1, adjusting for the height of each instrument above ground level. The SLODAR data suggest that a median improvement in the seeing angle from 0.689 arcsec to 0.481 arcsec at wavelength 500 nm would be obtained by fully correcting the ground-layer turbulence between the height of the UTs (taken as 10 m) and altitude 500 m.
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At Paranal Observatory, the least predictable parameter affecting the short-term scheduling of astronomical observations is the optical turbulence, especially the seeing, coherence time and ground layer fraction. These are critical variables driving the performance of the instruments of the Very Large Telescope (VLT), especially those fed with adaptive optics systems. Currently, the night astronomer does not have a predictive tool to support him/her in decision-making at night. As most service-mode observations at the VLT last less than two hours, it is critical to be able to predict what will happen in this time frame, to avoid time losses due to sudden changes in the turbulence conditions, and also to enable more aggressive scheduling. We therefore investigate here the possibility to forecast the turbulence conditions over the next two hours. We call this turbulence nowcasting, analogously with weather nowcasting, a term already used in meteorology coming from the contraction of now and forecasting. We present here the results of a study based on historical data of the Paranal Astronomical Site Monitoring combined with ancillary data, in a machine learning framework. We show the strengths and shortcomings of such an approach, and present some perspectives in the context of the Extremely Large Telescope.
This article aims at proving the feasibility of the forecast of all the most relevant classical atmospherical parameters for astronomical applications (wind speed and direction, temperature) above the ESO ground-base site of Cerro Paranal with a mesoscale atmospherical model called Meso-Nh. In a precedent paper we have preliminarily treated the model performances obtained in reconstructing some key atmospherical parameters in the surface layer 0-30~m studying the bias and the RMSE on a statistical sample of 20 nights. Results were very encouraging and it appeared therefore mandatory to confirm such a good result on a much richer statistical sample. In this paper, the study was extended to a total sample of 129 nights between 2007 and 2011 distributed in different parts of the solar year. This large sample made our analysis more robust and definitive in terms of the model performances and permitted us to confirm the excellent performances of the model. Besides, we present an independent analysis of the model performances using the method of the contingency tables. Such a method permitted us to provide complementary key informations with respect to the bias and the RMSE particularly useful for an operational implementation of a forecast system.
We present the integration status for `imaka, the ground-layer adaptive optics (GLAO) system on the University of Hawaii 2.2-meter telescope on Maunakea, Hawaii. This wide-field GLAO pathfinder system exploits Maunakeas highly confined ground layer and weak free-atmosphere to push the corrected field of view to ~1/3 of a degree, an areal field approaching an order of magnitude larger than any existing or planned GLAO system, with a FWHM ~ 0.33 arcseconds in the visible and near infrared. We discuss the unique design aspects of the instrument, the driving science cases and how they impact the system, and how we will demonstrate these cases on the sky.
In addition to astro-meteorological parameters, such as seeing, coherence time and isoplanatic angle, the vertical profile of the Earths atmospheric turbulence strength and velocity is important for instrument design, performance validation and monitoring, and observation scheduling and management. Here we compare these astro-meteorological parameters as well as the vertical profile itself from a forecast model based on a General Circulation Model from the European Centre for Median range Weather Forecasts and the stereo-SCIDAR, a high-sensitivity turbulence profiling instrument in regular operation at Paranal, Chile. The model is fast to process as no spatial nesting or data manipulation is performed. This speed enables the model to be reactive based on the most up to date forecasts. We find that the model is statistically consistent with measurements from stereo-SCIDAR. The correlation of the median turbulence profile from the model and the measurement is 0.98. We also find that the distributions of astro-meteorological parameters are consistent. We compare contemporaneous measurements and show that the free atmosphere seeing, isoplanatic angle and coherence time have correlation values of 0.64, 0.40 and 0.63 respectively. We show and compare the profile sequences from a large number of trial nights. We see that the model is able to forecast the evolution of dominating features. In addition to smart scheduling, ensuring that the most sensitive astronomical observations are scheduled for the optimum time, this model could enable remote site characterisation using a large archive of weather forecasts and could be used to optimise the performance of wide-field AO system.
In the context of the MOSE project, in this contribution we present a detailed analysis of the Meso-NH mesoscale model performances and their dependency on the model and orography horizontal resolutions in proximity of the ground. The investigated sites are Cerro Paranal (site of the ESO Very Large Telescope - VLT) and Cerro Armazones (site of the ESO European Extremely Large Telescope - E-ELT), in Chile. At both sites, data from a rich statistical sample of different nights are available - from AWS (Automated Weather Stations) and masts - giving access to wind speed, wind direction and temperature at different levels near the ground (from 2 m to 30 m above the ground). In this study we discuss the use of a very high horizontal resolution (dX=0.1 km) numerical configuration that overcomes some specific limitations put in evidence with a standard configuration with dX=0.5 km. In both sites results are very promising. The study is co-funded by ESO and INAF.
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