Mark Chun

Title: The atmosphere above Mauna Kea: all you wanted to know and dealing with the unknown unknowns

Abstract: I'll present our current state of knowledge on the character and
causes of optical turbulence in the atmosphere above Mauna Kea.
The most recent round of experiments aimed at site selection for
TMT and advanced adaptive optics systems on the 8-m telescopes
have confirmed what we suspected/knew about the atmosphere from previous
studies.  Studies are now turning to the remaining unknown causes of
optical turbulence.  These known unknowns arise from an increasingly
confined region in space and are entirely of our own doing.  The
implications of this for current and future telescopes on Mauna Kea
are striking.  Finally, I'll present one way to cheat these unknowns
at the 88" and get to the finest view possible on the mountain