Testing the Laser Projection System for artificial star creation

This is done with a ‘laser guide star’, an artificial reference that is created by projecting a laser beam into the mesosphere at 90 km altitude. TNO and Demcon have designed a Laser Projection System for this purpose, and are now in the process of building and testing nine of these systems for the Very Large Telescope and the Extremely Large Telescope, both located in Chile. This Mikroniek article focuses on the integration, alignment and testing of this complex and sensitive optomechanical system. (Image courtesy of Demcon)