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The Large Observatory for X-ray Timing (LOFT) is one of the five candidates that were considered by ESA as an M3 mission (with launch in 2022-2024). It is specifically designed to exploit the diagnostics of very rapid X-ray flux and…

We present a new program aimed at developing a new generation of micromirror devices specifically tailored for astronomical applications, multi-slit spectroscopy in particular. We first overview the general characteristics of…

An ELT system with its large aperture and sensitive optical and near infrared imager spectrographs will make major contributions to the study of stars ripped apart by supermassive black holes.

The Energetic X-ray Imaging Survey Telescope (EXIST) is a proposed next generation multi-wavelength survey mission. The primary instrument is a High Energy telescope (HET) that conducts the deepest survey for Gamma-ray Bursts (GRBs),…

X-shooter is the first 2nd generation instrument of the ESO Very Large Telescope(VLT). It is a very efficient, single-target, intermediate-resolution spectrograph that was installed at the Cassegrain focus of UT2 in 2009. The instrument…

Microwave Kinetic Inductance Detectors (MKIDs) are beginning to become more prominent in astronomical instrumentation, due to their sensitivity, low noise, high pixel count for superconducting detectors, and inherent energy and time…

The next generation ground-based extremely large telescopes (ELTs) present incredible opportunities to discover and characterize diverse planetary systems, even potentially habitable worlds. Adaptive-optics assisted thermal-IR (3-14 micron)…

ERIS is the new AO instrument for VLT-UT4 led by a Consortium of Max-Planck Institut fuer Extraterrestrische Physik, UK-ATC, ETH-Zurich, ESO and INAF. The ERIS AO system provides NGS mode to deliver high contrast correction and LGS mode to…

Euclid is a space telescope currently developed in the framework of the ESA Cosmic Vision 2015-2025 Program. It addresses fundamental cosmological questions related to dark matter and dark energy. The lens system of one of the two…

Context: A full understanding of the planet and moon formation process requires observations that probe the circumplanetary environment of accreting giant planets. The mid-infrared ELT imager and spectrograph (METIS) will provide a unique…

We describe results from the first astronomical adaptive optics system to use multiple laser guide stars, located at the 6.5-m MMT telescope in Arizona. Its initial operational mode, ground-layer adaptive optics (GLAO), provides uniform…

Knowledge of the Earth's atmospheric optical turbulence is critical for astronomical instrumentation. Not only does it enable performance verification and optimisation of existing systems but it is required for the design of future…

Full sky coverage Adaptive Optics on Extremely Large Telescopes requires the adoption of several Laser Guide Stars as references.With such large apertures, the apparent elongation of the beacons is absolutely significant.With few…

FIRST, the Fibered Imager foR a Single Telescope instrument, is an ultra-high angular resolution spectro-imager, able to deliver calibrated images and measurements beyond the telescope diffraction limit, a regime that is out of reach for…

MagAO-X is the extreme coronagraphic adaptive optics (AO) instrument for the 6.5-meter Magellan Clay telescope and is currently undergoing a comprehensive batch of upgrades. One innovation that the instrument features is a deformable mirror…

We present here the preliminary design of the RIZ module, one of the visible spectrographs of the ANDES instrument 1. It is a fiber-fed high-resolution, high-stability spectrograph. Its design follows the guidelines of successful…

One important frontier for astronomical adaptive optics (AO) involves methods such as Multi-Object AO and Multi-Conjugate AO that have the potential to give a significantly larger field of view than conventional AO techniques. A second key…

HIRES, a high resolution spectrometer, is one of the first five instruments foreseen in the ESO roadmap for the E-ELT. This spectrograph should ideally provide full spectral coverage from the UV limit to 2.5 microns, with a resolving power…

A new generation of telescopes with mirror diameters of 20 m or more, called extremely large telescopes (ELTs) has the potential to provide unprecedented imaging and spectroscopy of exo-planetary systems, if the difficulties in achieving…

Oncoming exoplanet spectro-imagers like the Planetary Camera and Spectrograph (PCS) for the Extremely Large Telescope (ELT) will aim for a new class of exoplanets, including Earth-like planets evolving around M dwarfs i.e., closer than…