Related papers: Asgard/NOTT: First lab assembly and experimental r…
The emission of warm dust dominates the mid-infrared spectra of active galactic nuclei (AGN). Only interferometric observations provide the necessary angular resolution to resolve the nuclear dust and to study its distribution and…
This paper provides a comprehensive overview of the subsystems of the NIGHT instrument. NIGHT (the Near Infrared Gatherer of Helium Transits) is a narrowband, high-resolution spectrograph, marking the first dedicated survey instrument for…
Context. The putative tori surrounding the accretion disks of active galactic nuclei (AGNs) play a fundamental role in the unification scheme of AGNs. Infrared long-baseline interferometry allows us to study the inner dust distribution in…
Hi-5 is a high-contrast (or high dynamic range) infrared imager project for the VLTI. Its main goal is to characterize young extra-solar planetary systems and exozodiacal dust around southern main-sequence stars. In this paper, we present…
We present the first measurements of the near-infrared (NIR), specifically the J-band, sky background in the Canadian High Arctic. There has been considerable recent interest in the development of an astronomical observatory in Ellesmere…
X-ray observations performed with ROSAT led to the discovery of 7 radio-silent isolated neutron stars (INSs) which are detected only through the relatively dim and purely thermal X-ray emission from the cooling star surface. A few of these…
We introduce the Lee Sang Gak Telescope (LSGT), a remotely operated, robotic 0.43-meter telescope. The telescope was installed at the Siding Spring Observatory, Australia, in 2014 October, to secure regular and exclusive access to the dark…
BIFROST will be a short-wavelength ($\lambda$ = 1.0 - 1.7$\mu$m) beam combiner for the VLT Interferometer, combining both high spatial ($\lambda$/2B = 0.8 mas) and spectral (up to R = 25,000) resolution. It will be part of the Asgard Suite…
The GRAVITY instrument has been revolutionary for near-infrared interferometry by pushing sensitivity and precision to previously unknown limits. With the upgrade of GRAVITY and the Very Large Telescope Interferometer (VLTI) in GRAVITY+,…
Interferometry in the optical and near infrared has so far played a marginal role in Extragalactic Astronomy. Active Galactic Nuclei are the brightest and most compact extragalactic sources, nonetheless only a very limited number could be…
The apodized-pupil Lyot coronagraph is one of the most advanced starlight cancellation concepts studied intensively in the past few years. Extreme adaptive optics instruments built for present-day 8m class telescopes will operate with such…
The Cassiop\'ee project aims to develop the key technologies that will be used to deploy very high-performance Adaptive Optics for future ELTs. The ultimate challenge is to detect earth-like planets and characterize the composition of their…
The AGN-heated dust distribution (the "torus") is increasingly recognized not only as the absorber required in unifying models, but as a tracer for the reservoir that feeds the nuclear Super-Massive Black Hole. Yet, even its most basic…
The Near-UV-eXplorer (NUX) is a proposed ground-based, wide-field telescope array with a field of view of $\sim$70 square degrees, designed to operate over the 300-350 nm wavelength range and to achieve a target sensitivity of 20 mag in 150…
Over the past decade, holographic nanodiamond-polymer composite gratings have been developed and optimized as high-efficiency diffractive elements for very cold neutrons (VCN), for use as mirrors and beam splitters in a triple-Laue (LLL)…
In this paper, we study the feasibility of obtaining near-infrared spectra of bright extrasolar planets with the 2nd generation VLTI Spectro-Imager instrument (VSI), which has the required angular resolution to resolve nearby hot Extrasolar…
Aspera is a NASA Astrophysics Pioneers SmallSat mission designed to study diffuse OVI emission from the warm-hot phase gas in the halos of nearby galaxies. Its payload consists of two identical Rowland Circle-type long-slit spectrographs,…
RISTRETTO is a visible high-resolution spectrograph fed by an extreme adaptive optics (XAO) system, to be proposed as a visitor instrument on ESO VLT. The main science goal of RISTRETTO is the detection and atmospheric characterization of…
Instrumentation designed to characterize potentially habitable planets may combine adaptive optics and high-resolution spectroscopy techniques to achieve the highest possible sensitivity to spectral signs of life. Detecting the weak signal…
We discuss a cryogenic, multi-object near-infrared spectrometer as a second generation instrument for the VLT. The spectrometer combines 20 to 40 independent integral eld units (IFUs), which can be positioned by a cryogenic robot over the…