They Pointed a Laser at Saturn..See What Happened

Here is a bit more from their deployment:

One of the first images of the 22-watt laser being launched, taken by the Laser Pointing Camera (LPC) [1], shows the intense orange beam pointed at a globular cluster. Another LPC image shows the laser pointed close to the planet Saturn.

The Adaptive Optics Facility uses sensors to analyse the atmospheric turbulence and a deformable mirror integrated in the telescope to correct for the image distortions caused by the atmosphere. But several bright point-like stars needs to be at hand in order to correct for the effects of turbulence, and these need to be very close to the science target in the sky.

This sounds interesting and look forward to seeing more of the results from this test.  Also here is an extra video below showing a cool space timelapse taken at the facility!

thanks to eso.org for the info and pic



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