Related papers: Making FORS2 fit for exoplanet observations (again…
Differential atmospheric dispersion is a wavelength-dependent effect introduced by Earth's atmosphere that affects astronomical observations performed using ground-based telescopes. It is important, when observing at a zenithal angle…
We report transmission spectroscopy of the bloated hot Jupiter WASP-74b in the wavelength range from 4000 to 6200 \r{A}. We observe two transit events with the Very Large Telescope FOcal Reducer and Spectrograph (VLT FORS2) and present a…
Searching for nearby exoplanets with direct imaging is one of the major scientific drivers for both space and ground-based programs. While the second generation of dedicated high-contrast instruments on 8-m class telescopes is about to…
Direct exoplanet detection is limited by speckle noise in the point spread function (PSF) of the central star. This noise can be reduced by subtracting PSF images obtained simultaneously in adjacent narrow spectral bands using a…
Atmospheric regions below a refractive boundary are hidden in limb observations. Refraction thus creates a gray continuum in the planet's transmission spectrum which can hide spectral features associated with sources of atmospheric opacity.…
X-ray absorption spectroscopy (XAS) has gained popularity in recent years as it probes matter with high spatial and elemental sensitivity. However, the theoretical modelling of XAS is a challenging task since XAS spectra feature a fine…
We report analysis of transit spectroscopy of the extrasolar planets WASP-12 b, WASP-17 b, and WASP-19 b using the Wide Field Camera 3 on the HST. We analyze the data for a single transit for each planet using a strategy similar in certain…
The Atmospheric Dispersion Corrector (ADC) of the Gemini Planet Imager (GPI) corrects the chromatic dispersion caused by differential atmospheric refraction (DAR), making it an important optic for exoplanet observation. Despite requiring…
Adaptive optics will almost completely remove the effects of atmospheric turbulence at 10 microns on the Extremely Large Telescope (ELT) generation of telescopes. In this paper, we observationally confirm that the next most important…
The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) will enable the search for and characterization of terrestrial exoplanet atmospheres in the habitable zone via transmission spectroscopy. However, relatively little work has been done to use solar…
We check the performance of the FRODOSpec integral-field spectrograph for observations of faint sources in crowded fields. Although the standard processing pipeline L2 yields too noisy fibre spectra, we present a new processing software…
The large number of new planets expected from wide-area transit surveys means that follow-up transmission spectroscopy studies of their atmospheres will be limited by the availability of telescope assets. We argue that telescopes covering a…
Integral field spectrographs are an important technology for exoplanet imaging, due to their ability to take spectra in a high-contrast environment, and improve planet detection sensitivity through spectral differential imaging. ALES is the…
Imaging faint objects, such as exoplanets or disks, around nearby stars is extremely challenging because host star images are dominated by the telescope diffraction pattern. Using a coronagraph is an efficient solution for removing…
Among the group of extrasolar planets, transiting planets provide a great opportunity to obtain direct measurements for the basic physical properties, such as mass and radius of these objects. These planets are therefore highly important in…
The study of exoplanetary atmospheres relies on detecting minute changes in the transit depth at different wavelengths. To date, a number of ground and space based instruments have been used to obtain transmission spectra of exoplanets in…
Direct imaging and spectral characterization of exoplanets using extreme adaptive optics (ExAO) is a key science goal of future extremely large telescopes and space observatories. However, quasi-static wavefront errors will limit the…
Direct imaging of exoplanets requires the detection of very faint objects orbiting close to very bright stars. In this context, the SPICES mission was proposed to the European Space Agency for planet characterization at visible wavelength.…
Recently, we introduced PLanetary Atmospheric Tool for Observer Noobs (PLATON), a Python package that calculates model transmission spectra for exoplanets and retrieves atmospheric characteristics based on observed spectra. We now expand…
Gas-giant planets emit a large fraction of their light in the mid-infrared ($\gtrsim$3$\mu$m), where photometry and spectroscopy are critical to our understanding of the bulk properties of extrasolar planets. Of particular importance are…