An Etymological Dictionary of Astronomy and Astrophysics
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An → adaptive optics instrument at the → European Southern Observatory (ESO) → Very Large Telescope (VLT) in service since 2001. It provides adaptive optics assisted imaging, imaging polarimetry, and → coronagraphy (only L) in the 1-5 μm range. It consists of two components: NAOS (Nasmyth Adaptive Optics System) and CONICA (COudé Near Infrared CAmera). The adaptive optics system, NAOS, is equipped with both → visible and → infrared→ wavefront sensors. It contains five → dichroic filters which split the light from the telescope between CONICA and one of the NAOS wavefront sensors. CONICA is the → infrared camera and → spectrometer attached to NAOS and equipped with an Aladdin 1024 × 1024 pixel InSb array detector. It possesses several wheels carrying masks/slits (including focal plane coronagraphic masks), filters, polarizing elements, → grisms and several cameras allowing → diffraction-limited sampling across the full wavelength range.

NaCo, from NAOS (→ Nasmyth, → adaptive; → optics; → system) + CONICA (→ coude; → near-infrared; → camera).

A bright, blue star of V = 2.25 in the constellation → Puppis. It is a hot → supergiant of type O5, with a → surface temperature of 42,000 K, lying 1,400 → light-years away. Naos is one of the rarest → O-type stars visible to the → naked eye.

Naos, from Gk. naos "ship," since it used to be the Zeta star of Argo Navis (Jason's vessel Argos) before becoming Zeta in Puppis.