Demonstration of portable solar adaptive optics system

Solar-adaptive optics (AO) are more challenging than nighttime AO, in some aspects. A portable solar adaptive optics (PSAO) system featuring compact physical size, low cost, and good performance has been proposed and developed. PSAO can serve as a visiting instrument for any existing ground-based solar telescope to improve solar image quality by replacing just a few optical components. High-level programming language, LabVIEW, is used to develop the wavefront sensing and control software, and general purpose computers are used to drive the whole system. During October 2011, the feasibility and good performance of PSAO was demonstrated with the 61-cm solar telescope at San Fernando Observatory. The image contrast and resolution are noticeably improved after AO correction.