AITC News

Published in the RSAA Lunations
Vol1 Issue40 1–31 May 2023

MAVIS Design Review Success

The MAVIS instrument is an adaptive optics imager and spectrograph which will be installed on ESO's Very Large Telescope (VLT) Unit Telescope 4 in Chile. The project is being led by Astralis-AITC, with a Consortium that also includes Astralis-MQ ('AAO' in Sydney), INAF (Italy), LAM (France), as well as ESO itself (Germany).

MAVIS stands for the MCAO-Assisted Visible Imager and Spectrograph. The MCAO refers to Multi-Conjugate Adaptive Optics, meaning that MAVIS will use multiple deformable mirrors (DMs) to remove the effects of atmospheric turbulence at multiple altitudes.

In order to measure the turbulence and compute the necessary commands for the DMs to negate the distortion caused by the atmosphere, MAVIS will make use of three Natural Guide Star and eight Laser Guide Star Wavefront Sensors, and a Real-Time Computer, which will measure the turbulence seen by these sensors, compute a tomographic model of the atmosphere and command the DMs - all at one thousand times per second!

The high angular resolution of MAVIS, combined with the large collecting area of the VLT, brings many exciting opportunities for science, in terms of both visible imaging and spectroscopy. The science teams will have access to a large number of guaranteed observing nights with MAVIS.

Given the high complexity of MAVIS, the project is following ESO's standard development lifecycle which requires projects to undergo a number of design reviews by both ESO and external experts. In March MAVIS successfully completed the Preliminary Design Review (PDR) and is now moving into the Final Design phase of the project. The PDR process saw both praise for the design effort so far and also many constructive suggestions from ESO's review panel.

The MAVIS team, both at AITC and further afield, are proud of the friendly, collaborative atmosphere within the Consortium, and are looking forward to reaching the future Final Design Review milestone, at which point the MAVIS design must be finalised and ready to start construction.

David Broderick on behalf of the MAVIS Team

_{Pictures:  Image 1 - MAVIS CAD Drawing, Image 2 - The MAVIS Team}

_{Image 2 MAVIS PDR Team}