• Korean Journal of Optics and Photonics
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• v.34 no.3
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• pp.99-105
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• 2023

The performance of astronomical telescopes can be negatively affected by atmospheric turbulence. To address this issue, techniques for atmospheric turbulence correction have been developed, requiring the simulation of atmospheric turbulence in the laboratory. The most practical way to simulate atmospheric turbulence is to use a phase plate. When measuring a phase plate that simulates strong turbulence, a Shack-Hartmann wave-front sensor is commonly used. However, the laser power decreases as it passes through the phase plate, potentially leading to a weak laser signal at the sensor. This paper investigates the need to control the laser power when measuring a phase plate that simulates strong atmospheric turbulence, and examines the effects of the laser power on the measured wavefront. For phase plates with relatively high Fried parameter r₀, the laser power causes a variation of over 10% in r₀. For phase plates with relatively low r₀, the laser power causes a variation of less than 5%, which means that the influence of the laser power is negligible for phase plates that simulate strong atmospheric turbulence. Based on the system described in this paper, a phase plate simulating strong atmospheric turbulence can be measured at a laser power of 5 mW or higher. Therefore, controlling the laser's output power is necessary when measuring a phase plate for simulating atmospheric turbulence, especially for phase plates with low r₀ values.

• Journal of Astronomy and Space Sciences
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• v.22 no.1
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• pp.1-12
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• 2005

The Korean VLBI Network (KVN) will open a new field of research in astronomy, geodesy and earth science using the newest three Elm radio telescopes. This will expand our ability to look at the Universe in the millimeter regime. Imaging capability of radio interferometry is highly dependent upon the antenna configuration, source size, declination and the shape of target. In this paper, imaging simulations are carried out with the KVN system configuration. Five test images were used which were a point source, multi-point sources, a uniform sphere with two different sizes compared to the synthesis beam of the KVN and a Very Large Array (VLA) image of Cygnus A. The declination for the full time simulation was set as +60 degrees and the observation time range was -6 to +6 hours around transit. Simulations have been done at 22GHz, one of the KVN observation frequency. All these simulations and data reductions have been run with the Astronomical Image Processing System (AIPS) software package. As the KVN array has a resolution of about 6 mas (milli arcsecond) at 220Hz, in case of model source being approximately the beam size or smaller, the ratio of peak intensity over RMS shows about 10000:1 and 5000:1. The other case in which model source is larger than the beam size, this ratio shows very low range of about 115:1 and 34:1. This is due to the lack of short baselines and the small number of antenna. We compare the coordinates of the model images with those of the cleaned images. The result shows mostly perfect correspondence except in the case of the 12mas uniform sphere. Therefore, the main astronomical targets for the KVN will be the compact sources and the KVN will have an excellent performance in the astrometry for these sources.