Support Electronics

LINC-NIRVANA uses a total of seven large enclosures to house its electronics. These enclsosures are sealed and climate controlled to ensure proper performance and low heat leakage.

Mid-High Wavefront Sensor

These two devices measure the atmospheric turbulence at an altitude of 7 km above the telescope and correct it using the Xinetics deformable mirror.

K-Mirror

These two mechanisms de-rotate the sky, allowing the natural guide stars to fall on the correct locations in the Mid-High Wavefront Sensor.

Trans-Alpino Foci

These two bolt circles have been deliberately kept free to allow future expansion of LN capabilities.

Cable Channels

These metal enclosures guide the many cables between the components of LINC-NIRVANA.

Ground Layer Wavefront Sensors

These two large instruments measure the turbulence directly above the telescope and feed the correction information to the LBT's adaptive secondary mirrors.

Calibration Units

These small optical breadboards supply light for internal alignment and calibration of the instrument.

Science Channel Cryostat

The light from both telescopes ends up in the large (2 m high) science channel cryostat, containing both the science detector and the fringe and flexure tracking system

Piston Mirror

This lightweight pair of mirrors moves back and forth rapidly to remove differential arrival time of the wavefront at the two telescopes. To reach the necessary performance, the LN team developed a (patented) custom metal substrate.

Xinetics Deformable Mirrors

These two high-speed deformable mirrors contain 349 actuators each to implement the turbulence correction measured by the Mid-High Wavefront Sensors.

Annular Mirrors

A pair of flat mirrors with a central hole direct the starlight from 2 to 6 arcminute diameter into the Ground Layer Wavefront Sensors.

Carbon Fiber Optical Bench

This patented large, lightweight composite structure provides stiffness and low thermal expansion for supporting the optical elements of LINC-NIRVANA

Light From Telescope

The semi-transparent yellow beams indicate the light path from the two telescopes of the LBT into the instrument. A special mirror above the science channel cryostat splits visible from infrared light.