Page Comparison

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What deflection do we want? For Auxtel the FOV is about 6 arcmin. From center to side it's 2000*0.1 arcsec = 200 arcsec = 3.33 arcmin. So a deflection of 2 arcmin seems decent. If we're 4m away from primary, spot is displaced by only 2mm.
Problem with this config is beams are not very separated, spatially. We need a precision periscope on some to get more displacement.

Meghan Notes

Mac mini control system

newport - start reading control manual for 2 degrees of freedom setup
system will now have beam splitters
- do beamsplitter mapping
- look at alternatives and categorize
clear a workspace
~~come up with plan and deadlines~~

SEMESTER PLAN:

end of Jan - conceptual design review complete
- Tasks for Meghan
  - make a 4-5 slide slide deck where I make pictures describing the system (include part numbers, make list)
  - software architecture plan for controlling the mounts (can do during the lead time for hardware)
    - read control manual for whatever mount setup we order
    - If the adjustable hardware impeding timeline we abandon
  - Place beamsplitter order and put below deadlines on calendar

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Prototype one single collimated beam that we can steer around
Optical source and control the light on/off (engineering milestones)
Then, we scale this up to six steerable beams
Then test these six beams on a telescope that we have HERE to test input (tight-beam demonstration)
check in with telescope mounting after prof. stubbs trip (phone app that captures inside of telescope dome/Mario's Solidworks model)

Beamsplitter options, CWS Jan 26 2024

vendor	part #	size	specs	price
Newport	20BC17MB.1	50.8 x 50.8	lambda/4	$635, stock
Edmund	#32-704	50.0 x 50.0	lambda/4	$539, stock
Thor	BS031	50.8 x 50.8	lambda/4	$564, stock

Initial steps:

read control manual for whichever steerable mounts we order
read some of the papers from the slack
make wiki organization clearer - separate page for meeting notes
read up on kinesis software

longer term: mac mini windows equivalent

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Alignment:

CWS Jan 27 2024

If we use bounced-back beam from front face of beamsplitter cube, or else retro-reflected return beam, what displacement corresponds to what angle?
Assume 50 cm distance from cube face to detector. If we want to align to 5 arcmin (size of a Rubin detector) then the angle is 5*60*5e-6 rad = 1.5 mrad.
That is a spot displacement of 1.5E-3*50cm = 7.5 mm. So a detector 10mm on a side would be good for this. Thor labs 126MU camera is 14mm x 10mm.

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If we send the beam down to a corner cube and back again, that allows for in situ alignment, with a flip-into-beam beamsplitter.

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camera:

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Camera software:

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Flippers:

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3/8 inch diameter micrometer mounting is compatible with Thor Labs Piezo PIAK10 actuators

This Newport stage is too. We'd need two in order to steer each beam.

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The other alternative is Thor labs small tip-tilt stage

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After considerable looking around for an off-the-shelf way to control 6 different tip-tilt platforms, arrived at this from Newport:

Nope- inadequate force from actuators. Didn't order this.

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Acronym options

Multi-beam Optical Seeing Sensor- MOSS
Precise Emitter of Aligned Rays - PEAR
Parallel Aligned Ray Projector- PARP
Parallel Photon Projector- P-cubed
Laser Light Aligned Multibeam Apparatus- LLAMA