Past Projects
Past Mini-Grant Projects:
Marcos van Dam, Postdoctoral Researcher, Lawrence Livermore
Natl Laboratory, Bruce Macintosh. (November, 2003).
Marcos van Dam spent a week at Don Miller's Lab at Indiana University's School
of Optometry. He learned about AO systems for vision science and obtained "hands-on" experience
of a working system in order to write a chapter in CfAO's Vision Science AO
Manual. Marcos collaborated with the staff there to improve the performance
of their AO system by using the knowledge acquired while working with Keck
Observatory's AO system. A significant improvement to the stability of the
AO system was attained once a bug in the centroiding code was isolated. In
addition, during this time Ravi Jonnal, Karen Thorn and Marcos van Dam added
several
new features to the AO system. For example:
- Background subtraction in the wave-front
sensing camera.
- Image sharpening to remove static aberrations.
- Reconstructors for varying
pupil sizes.
- Modal reconstructors using Zernike polynomials in addition
to the existing zonal reconstructor.
High level software was also written to analyze the data coming out of the
telemetry stream, including centroiding code to verify the real-time calculations
and routines that calculate the power spectrum and the fitting error. The highlight
was seeing the AO system
in action on a human eye!
Mark Campanelli, (June 2003).
Mark’s project involves removing the warp in AOSLO images that are caused
by eye movements. The right image shows a close-up of his experimental setup,
which involves AOSLO imaging of the UHCO rubber eye (seen from the back). The
eye is connected to a motorized rotating stage which can be used to generate
a range of typical eye movements. The red spot on the rubber eye retina shows
the raster scan from the AOSLO.
Tiffany Glassman, Astronomy Graduate Student,
UCLA (May 2002).
Tiffany worked on the development and implementation of workshop activities
for the annual CfAO Professional Development Workshop. She worked with CfAO
educational professionals during the planning process reviewing
and recommending instructional materials for inquiry based activity development,
and then
facilitated an inquiry experience at the workshop.
"I think the clearest result for me of being involved with CfAO educational
activities is the way I taught my introductory Astronomy class this summer.
Talking to and working with people committed to better educational practices
led me to try to integrate hands-on activities and other current educational
practices into my teaching."
Summary of Mini-Grant Experience
Tiffany outside the Exploratorium working on ideas for inquiry-based instructional
material with Exploratorium and CfAO staff
Peter Kurczynski, Postdoctoral
Researcher, Bell Labs/UC Berkeley (Nov. 2001 – Feb. 2002).
Peter’s experience has primarily involved the design and integration
of micro-electromechanical systems (MEMS) for adaptive optics applications.
The mini-grant provided him the opportunity to attend astronomical observing
runs at Kitt Peak and Cerro Tololo as part of the Deep Lens Survey being undertaken
by astronomers at Bell Labs. He participated in astronomical data collection
and improved his understanding of how instruments are used at the telescope,
and how useful scientific information is gained from the data."I traveled
far-afield from my normal environs in the laboratory and clean room! I met
and talked with astronomers from around the world… The mini-grant is
a fabulous opportunity that I would recommend to anyone in the CfAO."
Lynne Raschke, Astronomy Graduate Student,
UCSC (November 2001).
Lynne visited University of Rochester where she participated as a subject in
several vision science experiments and worked with vision science graduate student,
Jason Porter, to develop content for the CfAO internship orientation. This work
was continued at the Professional Development Workshop where additional CfAO
members helped modify the instructional material to include inquiry.
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