Bibcode
García-Lorenzo, B.; Eff-Darwich, A.; Fuensalida, J. J.; Castro-Almazán, J.
Bibliographical reference
Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Volume 397, Issue 3, pp. 1633-1646.
Advertised on:
8
2009
Citations
29
Refereed citations
27
Description
Current projects for large telescopes demand a proper knowledge of
atmospheric turbulence to design efficient adaptive optics systems in
order to reach large Strehl ratios. However, the proper characterization
of the turbulence above a particular site requires long-term monitoring.
Because of the lack of long-term information on turbulence,
high-altitude winds (in particular winds at the 200mbar pressure level)
were proposed as a parameter for estimating the total turbulence at a
particular site, with the advantage of records of winds going back
several decades. We present the first complete study of atmospheric
adaptive optics parameters above the Teide Observatory (Canary Islands,
Spain) in relation to wind speed. On-site measurements of
C2N(h) profiles (more than 20200 turbulence
profiles) from G-SCIDAR (Generalized Scintillation Detection and
Ranging) observations and wind vertical profiles from balloons have been
used to calculate the seeing, the isoplanatic angle and the coherence
time. The connection of these parameters to wind speeds at ground and at
200mbar pressure level are shown and discussed. Our results confirm the
well-known high quality of the Canary Islands astronomical
observatories.