Feasibility and cost

Rebuilding Pueo entirely would be costly and require considerable efforts. One should seek a solution which preserves Pueo's main optical and mechanical components. Fortunately, such a solution exists. Given its size the deformable mirror of Pueo can easily be replaced by a mirror of the same size but with more electrodes printed on it. The technology is available at the Institute for Astronomy (IfA), where a custom made mirror could easily be fabricated according to specifications. Moreover, progress in mirror fabrication and mirror support would allow the IfA to deliver a mirror with a higher compensation efficiency and a better optical quality (avoiding artifacts such as shown in Fig. 1). Because of the small size of the lenslet array, upgrading the wave-front sensor may appear more difficult. However, a 36-element compact lenslet array of nearly the same size has been recently fabricated at the IfA for the IRTF AO system. Hence again, upgrading the current lenslet array to 36 lenslets is not a problem. Both the deformable mirror (with its associated high voltage amplifiers) and the lenslet array (with its optical fiber outputs) could be obtained either directly through an agreement with the IfA, or simply purchased through Laplacian Optics. The avalanche photodiodes (APDs) could be purchased directly from EG&G or through Laplacian Optics. Only software modifications would have to be made by the CFHT Corporation.

Regarding cost, one can only give an approximate estimate here. Based on the experience of the IfA AO group, one can estimate the cost of the above components in the $ 200 to 250 K range including the APDs but not the software upgrade. We believe that the low cost of this proposal makes it particularly attractive. It relies heavily on technology developments made at the IfA, and there is a unique chance to take opportunity of it. However, it is important to realize that this possibility may not last for ever. There is now a very good chance that Laplacian Optics will evolved toward a company more oriented toward commercial applications of adaptive optics (eye vision and optical communications), in which case the "know how" will no longer be available at the IfA.