KAPAO III: First-Light Observations and On-Sky Data

KAPAO is an Adaptive Optics (AO) instrument attached to Pomona College's 1-meter telescope at Table Mountain Observatory (TMO). This project is a collaborative effort of faculty and students from undergraduate institutions Sonoma State University, Pomona College, and Harvey Mudd College with Caltech providing the real-time control software. I present the third and final presentation about the KAPAO project at this meeting, which will include a discussion of integration of the multiple camera systems, optical alignment methods, and both in-lab calibration and on-sky implementation. I will describe the characterization of the NIR camera sensitivity using software tools developed in IDL, wavefront sensing alignment techniques, and in-lab operation. Finally, I will present first-light observations of the star Beta Pegasi and on-sky performance results from late-summer 2013.