Adaptive Optics at CFHT: the Final Frontier

Olivier Lai
CFHT Observatory

These are the voyages of the CFH Telescope
Its 35 year mission:
To explore strange new worlds
To seek out new life and new civilizations
To boldly go where no man has gone before

Since 1991, adaptive optics has played an important role in the
history of CFHT. After the very successful PUEO system which saw its
first light in 1996, a test-bench for high dynamic range AO, named
Pueo Nui, was proposed as an niche upgrade. As the scientific merit of
this device seemed too narrow, an all-purpose instrument was proposed
next. This system was an ambitious Visible All-Sky AO system (VASAO)
which would require polychromatic laser guide stars. After an in-depth
feasibility study, it appeared that the simultaneous requirement of
visible and all-sky was potentially mutually exclusive. In the CFHT
2013+ Call for Instrument, two diametrically opposite AO-based ideas
have been proposed (amongst others). The FIRST high dynamic range
imager, and `IMAKA, a ground layer AO system coupled with a square
degree OT-CCD camera. This presentation will review this interesting
history and describe these recent developments as an allegorical
illustration that smaller telescopes can successfully be used to
test-bench original niche instruments.