Fred Chaffee attempts to put the event in perspective: "This was
an historic night at the Keck Observatory. The promise of producing
diffraction-limited near-infrared images on the world's largest telescope
reached a major milestone tonight, with the first closing of the AO loop.
The AO team and the many others on the Observatory
staff who made this evening possible deserve the heartiest congratulations.
Scott Acton may have put it best at night's end: 'It's a miracle!'"
The Keck II AO Facility was made possible by a grant from the W.M. Keck Foundation and funds from NASA. The Natural Guide Star AO system was fabricated by Keck Observatory and Lawrence Livermore National Lab (LLNL provided the wavefront controller).