Mirror seeing mainly refers to the degradation of image quality caused by mirror turbulence, and its impact becomes more significant as the size of the telescope increases. Today, when the aperture of the telescope has reached the 30-meter level, mirror seeing detection has become a key technology for the development of large-aperture telescopes. However, the current detection technology equipment is expensive, has poor portability, and the design of the non-common optical path (perpendicular to the optical axis) will also affect the normal operation of the telescope system.

In a study published in Infrared and Laser Engineering, a research group led by Researcher Yang Fei from the Changchun Institute of Optics, Fine Mechanics and Physics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences analyzed the different technologies currently used for mirror seeing detection, and proposed a multi-channel fiber laser measurement technology based on slope. This technology can quickly detect mirror seeing in the non-common optical path (perpendicular to the optical axis) direction, thereby improving the work efficiency of the system and the detection area of mirror seeing.

In order to quickly measure the overall mirror seeing in the direction perpendicular to the optical axis, the researchers deployed multiple measurement optical paths in the radial direction of the mirror, and simultaneously obtained the images of each beam after passing through the mirror turbulence, thereby obtaining the measurement results.

The researchers tested and analyzed this scheme, and the results showed that this technology can obtain results that conform to the actual situation under different turbulence environments. Furthermore, in the research published in Sensors, researchers used a hybrid optoelectronic neural network to quickly distinguish whether there is turbulence or not. In the future, it is expected to be applied together with this technology in more complex mirror seeing detection scenarios.

The aforementioned research was supported by the International Partnership Program of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. The introduction of this mirror seeing detection technology not only solves the defects of the common optical path in traditional detection technology, but also achieves fast and accurate measurement of the overall mirror seeing. It lays a technical foundation for the development of key technologies for the next generation of large-aperture optical telescopes.