This project will support development and publication of a textbook entitled "Seeing Clearly: The Measurement and Impacts of Atmospheric Turbulence and Refractivity on the Propagation of Extraterrestrial Radiation." The text, with chapter contributions from acknowledged leaders in an array of relevant fields, will serve as a lasting resource for scientists and graduate-level students seeking a fundamental understanding of the impacts of atmospheric turbulence on Earth-based optical astronomy. It will draw upon input gained at the first Symposium on Seeing (SOS) held in 2007.
The intellectual merit of this effort derives from an enriched interdisciplinary exchange that should support further advances in optimal development application of adaptive optics based upon a fuller knowledge of turbulent behavior of the atmospheric medium.
Broader impacts will come through education and dissemination of key information needed to mitigate turbulence-generated interference with clear astronomical measurements. Efforts to reach a diverse readership will be enhanced development of a relatively low-cost web-based version of the text whose availability will be broadly advertised across the meteorological and astronomical communities.
. The textbook, which has chapter contributions from acknowledged leaders in the field, is designed to be a lasting resource for scientists and graduate-level students interested in obtaining a fundamental understanding of the impacts of atmospheric optical turbulence on Earth-based astronomy. The textbook is the result of a recommendation made by a panel of keynote speakers at the first Symposium on Seeing (SOS) held in Hawaii in March of 2007 to help facilitate this emerging field; the funds requested herein would supplement the original award that made SOS possible. All of the contributions for the textbook are peer-reviewed. Intellectual Merit of the Textbook on Seeing There have been increased efforts in recent years to observe and quantify the effects of atmospheric turbulence and refractivity gradients on telescope image stability at various wavelengths – collectively referred to as seeing. At the same time there has been recent progress in modeling these atmospheric effects to support advances in methods that mitigate resulting telescope image degradation, e.g., adaptive optics. Given the complex and multidisciplinary nature of these efforts, there is significant opportunity for further progress, which would be facilitated by an authoritative reference textbook. The textbook on seeing assembles contributions from experts in the various facets of the complex challenge posed by atmospheric turbulence on optical and longer wavelengths. Broader Impacts of a Textbook on Seeing To allow for wide distribution of the textbook on seeing, the publisher will make available an on-demand soft-cover version of the book that can be purchased at an estimated cost of ~$20 via the web at www.virtualbookworm.com/. This low cost has made the textbook affordable to a wide spectrum of students and researchers, spreading the impact of the information. In addition, a small number of hardcover copies have been distributed to the libraries of the institutions of key scientists that contributed to the production of the textbook. For example, a copy had been made available to the shared library of the Institute for Astronomy and the Meteorology Department at the University of Hawaii, which will encourage interest and participation among the many students with Hawaiian and Pacific Islander ethnic backgrounds served by UH. The textbook on seeing, which focuses on the observational and mitigation aspects of the problem of atmospheric turbulence on astronomy, brings together expertise in both meteorology and astronomy and thereby actively promotes networking and partnerships between these two complementary but diverse fields. The textbook will give students and scientists the background to inspire new instrument and modeling approaches.
