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PUEO

PUEO is an adaptive optics system built for the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope (CFHT). PUEO is named after the sharp-eyed Hawaiian owl because it helps to sharpen the vision of the telescope. It is also an acronym and stands for Probing the Universe with Enhanced Optics. Image distortion caused by atmospheric turbulence is measured by highly-sensitive light detectors and corrected by a precisely-controlled flexible mirror.

PUEO is the result of a collaborative effort between several institutes: the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope, the NRC Herzberg Institute of Astrophysics, the Observatoire de Paris-Meudon and the French company Laserdot (now CILAS). NRC-HIA's ATRG-V designed, fabricated, integrated and tested the opto-mechanical bench and the wavefront sensor (WFS), and the electronics for both. The instrument went into operation on the telescope in 1996.

Image Gallery

A collection of images of PUEO

Related links

The following hyperlinks are to sites of organizations or other entities that are not subject to the Official Languages Act. The material found there is therefore in the language(s) used by the sites in question.

PUEO pages at CFHT