Description
The vertical structure of atmospheric turbulence is one of the key environmental parameters affecting multi-conjugate adaptive optics system performance. Knowledge of the turbulence profile can be used throughout the lifecycle of an instrument, from optimising the AO system design, planning observing schedules and providing post-observation estimates of the instrument point-spread function. Measurements of the vertical structure of turbulence at the 4m Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope (DKIST) in Maui have been limited to low vertical and temporal resolutions, leaving large uncertainties on the ultimate level of imaging performance that can be attained at the telescope. This work describes a turbulence profiling instrument for DKIST that has been installed on the telescope in early 2025 which measures high temporal and spatial wavefront measurements in multiple different fields, achieving a spatial turbulence profile by triangulation. To achieve this goal, two 28x28 subaperture wide-field Shack Hartmann wavefront sensor images are placed onto a single sensing detector at rates of up to 250Hz. Operating at this rate will allow the instrument to provide the highest vertical resolution optical measurements of turbulence that have been recorded on the sun as well as the velocity of the turbulence layers. The design and the performance of the instrument and impact on the data reduction method will be discussed on this poster.
