Derivation and experimental evaluation of a point-spread-function reconstruction from a dual-deformable-mirror adaptive optics system

This paper presents the derivation, implementation, and testing of an improved point spread function (PSF) reconstruction technique for the University of Victoria's dual-deformable-mirror (DM) woofer-tweeter (W/T) adaptive optics (AO) system. The methodology has been tested on numerical models and implemented on an experimental dual-DM AO system. The methodology is based on the data saved by the AO system during the science exposure. These data are later used in the postprocessing stage to reconstruct the PSF. Although the results are unique to the present W/T AO bench, the proposed PSF reconstruction methodology will be applicable to other dual-DM systems and to multi-DM AO systems. (C) 2008 Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers.