Atmospheric tip/tilt compensation for laser beam tracking with amateur telescopes

Kurzfassung

The compensation of atmospheric turbulence induced tip/tilt variations of the laser beam direction inside the receiver telescope is the first step to establish a sophisticated adaptive optical system. We present a rugged and reliable real-time beam stabilization system which is adapted on a mobile 10” amateur Schmidt-Cassegrain-Telescope (SCT) to demonstrate the functionality on different ground locations. Recently, the tip/tilt system was tested in horizontal direction on a 130 m free space propagation range. Tip/Tilt compensation with a root-mean-squared accuracy better than 500 nrad has been confirmed. All system characteristics were measured in relation to metrological conditions and turbulence strength.