Credit: TMT International Observatory
View of the TMT Adaptive Optics and telescope optics Alignment and Phasing Systems and the MODHIS Front End Instrument. The blue box structure is the Adaptive Optics System enclosure. The beam is steered into the system by the tertiary mirror (out view off the lower right) through the circular entrance on the white Science Calibration Unit. The Adaptive Optics System corrects for the distorting effects of the Earth’s atmosphere and delivers a diffraction limited beam to the instruments mounted to it. On top of the Adaptive Optics enclosure is the hexagonal shaped MODHIS Front End Instrument where light from exoplanets, stars and any other being studied is fed into optical fibers. The Alignment and Phasing System (APS) is the charcoal structure alongside the Adaptive Optics System. APS will measure the position and shape of all of optical elements in the telescope, the secondary and tertiary mirrors and all 492 segments in the primary mirror, and generate the corrections needed to be applied by the Telescope Control System to perfectly align all of the optics. In this view, the telescope tube is oriented straight up toward the zenith
