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The PALM-3000 upgrade to the Palomar Adaptive Optics system will deliver extreme adaptive optics correction to a suite of three infrared and visible instruments on the 5.1 meter Hale telescope. PALM-3000 uses a 3388-actuator tweeter and a 241-actuator woofer deformable mirror, a wavefront sensor with selectable pupil sampling, and an innovative wavefront control computer based on a cluster of 17 graphics processing units to correct wavefront aberrations at scales as fine as 8.1 cm at the telescope pupil using natural guide stars. Many components of the system, including the science instruments and a post-coronagraphic calibration wavefront sensor, have already been commissioned on the sky. Results from a laboratory testbed used to characterize the remaining new components and verify all interfaces are reported. Deployment to Palomar Observatory is planned August 2010, with first light expected in early 2011.

The PALM-3000 upgrade to the Palomar Adaptive Optics system on the 5.1 meter Hale telescope will deliver extreme adaptive optics correction in near-infrared wavelengths and diffraction-limited images in visible wavelengths. PALM-3000 will use a 3388-actuator tweeter and a 241-actuator woofer deformable mirror, a Shack-Hartmann wavefront sensor with selectable pupil sampling, and an innovative wavefront control computer based on a cluster of 17 graphics processing units to correct wavefront aberrations at scales as fine as 8.1 cm at the telescope pupil using natural guide stars. The system is currently undergoing integration and testing, with deployment at Palomar Observatory planned in early 2011. We present the detailed design of key aspects of the adaptive optics system, and the current status of the deformable mirror characterization, wavefront sensor performance, and testbed activities.

Deployed as a multi-user shared facility on the 5.1 meter Hale Telescope at Palomar Observatory, the PALM-3000 highorder upgrade to the successful Palomar Adaptive Optics System will deliver extreme AO correction in the near-infrared, and diffraction-limited images down to visible wavelengths, using both natural and sodium laser guide stars. Wavefront control will be provided by two deformable mirrors, a 3368 active actuator woofer and 349 active actuator tweeter, controlled at up to 3 kHz using an innovative wavefront processor based on a cluster of 17 graphics processing units. A Shack-Hartmann wavefront sensor with selectable pupil sampling will provide high-order wavefront sensing, while an infrared tip/tilt sensor and visible truth wavefront sensor will provide low-order LGS control. Four back-end instruments are planned at first light: the PHARO near-infrared camera/spectrograph, the SWIFT visible light integral field spectrograph, Project 1640, a near-infrared coronagraphic integral field spectrograph, and 888Cam, a high-resolution visible light imager.