Justine van Popering (Haupt)

PR about our quantum network development initiative: BNL News Room

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Open source technology from Sky's Edge

Research on instrumentation for cosmology, radio astronomy, and quantum instrumentation compiled at ResearchGate

Fixed-wing drone carrying a calibration radio source for a 21cm radio telescope. We believe that 21cm intensity mapping is the future of dark energy cosmology and airborn beam mapping is a critical piece of the systematics-removal puzzle.
more / about the PUMA telescope

I'm a proponent of open source and openly critical of the concept of patents, but when your dayjob is at a national lab, concessions are ocassionally made. Link to patent text forthcoming.

Cryostat/camera for operating 9-CCD modules of the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope's 189-CCD focal plane array. Several copies of this chamber are being produced, one of which will be installed on the telescope as the Commissionoing Camera. Uses closed loop cryogenic regrigeration systems servicing two thermal zones, one for cooling the CCD array and one for the readout electronics. CCD baseplate attaches to low thermal expansion kinematic support structure. more

An f/1.2 lens that emulates the Vera Rubin Observatory telescope for the case of a single star. The optical design is catadiaptric: A Schwarzschild Objective modified with a meniscus lens at the output, which compensates the spherical aberration introduced by a flat window as on a vacuum chamber. In appears it's similar to a Maksutov Cassegrain but is really quite different (the small mirror silvered onto the meniscus lens is the primary mirror). paper, more

Optical system that simulates the perturbing effects of the atmosphere to create an image of a star with a realistic time-varying PSF. A common apparatus for adaptive optics developers, we use this to simulate putting a sensor "on the sky". Rotating phase screens with a surface structure consistent with the Kolmogorov turbulence frequency spectrum are our atmosphere. A Thorlabs wavefront sensor measures the real-time wavefront shape. The LASSO optic (above) provides the final imaging stage. more

A direct drive motor that carries an Iron-55 sample on the armature. Instead of conventional windings a PCB serves as both the stator and the mechanical baseplate making it intrinsically vacuum compatible. The PCB layout software I had access to at the time wasn't well suited to making curved traces on polar coordinates, so a mechanical CAD program (Autdesk Inventor) was used to design the stator PCB, which was as labor intensive as it sounds. more

CCD testing cryostat in the LSST production cleanroom. Stainless steel chamber with closed loop cooling, x-ray exposure capability, and a window cover on an articulated hinge. Docks to an optical testing station. more

When supressing stray light there is such a thing as too many baffles. Baffle edges "glint" however thin they may be and without rigorous analysis one wonders if baffles are doing more harm than good.

In the case of an optical tunnel optimized for flat field illumination there should be as few exposed baffles as possible and I make the case that a single well placed primary baffle is optimally effective. more

An imaging system with interchangeable lensboard, front and back focus, and an optical target holder with lateral positioning. For imaging anything onto anything, ~90% 3D printed. more

A focal reducer concept design proposal for a 3.5m telescope. more

A concept for actuating individual CCDs in tip/tilt/piston for integration into an active optics control loop. Dummy CCD is shown. more

Differntial measurement system for in-cryostat 9-CCD flatness measurement. Uses two Keyence absolute-distance laser triangulation sensors to compare the surface height of the surface under test (CCD array imaging surface) to an optical reference flat. Concept: Peter Takacs. more