Enhancing the capability of future medium-size telescopes: First light of the SALTO demonstrator

The adaptive optics (AO) technology is crucial to achieve the full potential of ground-based telescopes. Over the last three decades, the world has witnessed the successful advent and operation of AO systems on large ground-based telescopes. The complexity and cost of AO systems have largely gone down in the last decade thanks to advances in deformable mirror, wavefront sensor, and real-time computing technologies. Here, we present a robust Rayleigh scattered laser-guided single conjugated adaptive optics system called SALTO, which was de- signed, built, and tested in the Belgian countryside on a 1-meter class telescope. This project aims to demonstrate the possibility of rejuvenating the scientific goals of medium-class tele- scopes (1-3 m) with AO technology, as well as to enable optical telecommunication from rel- atively poor observing sites. This paper discusses the overview of the design, integration and calibration of SALTO. It concludes with the presentation of successful on-sky results at 1.55μm under 2-3′′ seeing.