Study on the precision of the multiaperture scintillation sensor turbulence profiler (MASS) employed in the site testing campaign for the Thirty Meter Telescope

The multiaperture scintillation sensor (MASS) has become a device widely employed to measure the altitude distribution of atmospheric turbulence. An empirical study is reported that investigates the dependence of the MASS results on the knowledge of the instrumental parameters. Also, the results of a side-by-side comparison of two MASS instruments are presented, indicating that MASS instruments permit measurements of the integrated seeing to a precision better than 0.05 arc sec and of the individual turbulence layer strength C(n)(2)(h)dh to better than 10(-14) m(1/3).

Measuring wind speeds and turbulence with a wave-front sensor

We analyze wave-front sensor (WFS) measurements taken with the 1.5-m telescope at the Starfire Optical Range in Albuquerque, N.M., of wind speeds in the turbulent atmospheric layers that cause seeing. The frozen-flow hypothesis suggests that atmospheric turbulence is located in thin horizontal layers and that turbulent features do not change over short time scales but are drawn along by the prevailing wind. Exploiting autocorrelation properties of the WFS data that result from these characteristics of atmospheric turbulence, we are able to measure the movements of individual layers. We also test the validity of the frozen-flow hypothesis.