Design of wide-field imaging shack Hartmann testbed

Standard adaptive optics systems measure the aberrations in the wavefronts of a beacon guide star caused by atmospheric turbulence, which limits the corrected field of view to the isoplanatic patch, the solid angle over which the optical aberration is roughly constant. For imaging systems that require a corrected field of view larger than the isoplanatic angle, a three-dimensional estimate of the aberration is required. We are developing a wide-field imaging Shack-Hartmann wavefront sensor (WFS) that will characterize turbulence over a large field of view tens of times the size of the isoplanatic angle. The technique will find application in horizontal and downward looking remote sensing scenarios where high resolution imaging through extended atmospheric turbulence is required. The laboratory prototype system consists of a scene generator, turbulence simulator, a Shack Hartman WFS arm, and an imaging arm. The system has a high intrinsic Strehl ratio, is telecentric, and diffraction limited. We present preliminary data and analysis from the system.