Related papers: Eighth-Order Image Masks for Terrestrial Planet Fi…
We described the design and operation principles of a new tunable-filter photometer developed for the 1-m telescope of the Special Astrophysical Observatory of the Russian Academy of Sciences and the 2.5-m telescope of the Sternberg…
Properly apodized pupils can deliver point spread functions (PSFs) free of Airy rings, and are suitable for high dynamical range imaging of extrasolar terrestrial planets (ETPs). To reach this goal, classical pupil apodization (CPA)…
The Hubble Space Telescope (HST)/Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph (STIS) contains the only currently operating coronagraph in space that is not trained on the Sun. In an era of extreme--adaptive-optics--fed coronagraphs, and with the…
A major goal of proposed future space observatories, such as the Habitable World Observatory, is to directly image and characterize Earth-like planets around Sun-like stars to search for habitability signatures requiring the starlight…
Imaging at hard X-ray energies (~10-600 keV) over very large fields of view (~60 deg per telescope) is required to conduct a high sensitivity all-sky and all-time survey for black holes. The proposed Energetic X-ray Imaging Survey Telescope…
Exoplanet imaging and spectroscopy are now routinely achieved by dedicated instruments on large ground-based observatories (e.g. Gemini/GPI, VLT/SPHERE, or Subaru/SCExAO). In addition to extreme adaptive optics (ExAO) and post-processing…
High-contrast imaging provided by a coronagraph is critical for the direction imaging of the Earth-like planet orbiting its bright parent star. A major limitation for such direct imaging is the speckle noise that is induced from the…
We introduce a new class of solutions for Apodized Pupil Lyot Coronagraphs (APLC) with segmented aperture telescopes to remove broadband diffracted light from a star with a contrast level of $10^{10}$. These new coronagraphs provide a key…
We present a generalized Non-negative factorization (NMF)-based data reduction pipeline for circumstellar disk and exoplanet detection. By using an adaptable pre-processing routine that applies algorithmic masks and corrections to improper…
Discovering exoplanets in orbit around distant stars via direct imaging is fundamentally impeded by the combined effect of optical diffraction and photon shot noise under extreme star-planet contrast. Coronagraphs strive to increase the…
Gaussian aperture pupil masks (GAPMs) can in theory achieve the contrast requisite for directly imaging an extrasolar planet. We use lab tests and simulations to further study their possible place as a high contrast imaging technique. We…
We present the scientific motivation and conceptual design for the recently funded Habitable-zone Planet Finder (HPF), a stabilized fiber-fed near-infrared (NIR) spectrograph for the 10 meter class Hobby-Eberly Telescope (HET) that will be…
To detect Earth-like planets in the visible with a coronagraphic telescope, two major noise sources have to be overcome: the photon noise of the diffracted star light, and the speckle noise due to the star light scattered by instrumental…
Directly observing exoplanets with coronagraphs is impeded by the presence of speckles from aberrations in the optical path, which can be mitigated in hardware with wavefront control as well as in post-processing. This work explores using…
We compare coronagraph concepts and investigate their behavior and suitability for planet finder projects with Extremely Large Telescopes (ELTs, 30-42 meters class telescopes). For this task, we analyze the impact of major error sources…
Non-redundant masking (NRM) is a high contrast, high resolution technique relevant to future space missions concerned with extrasolar planetary system and star formation, as well as general high angular resolution galactic and extragalactic…
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…
Accurate astrometry and photometry of saturated and coronagraphic point spread functions (PSFs) are fundamental to both ground- and space-based high contrast imaging projects. For ground-based adaptive optics imaging, differential…
Second-generation exoplanet imagers using extreme adaptive optics and coronagraphy have demonstrated their great potential for studying close circumstellar environments and for detecting new companions and helping to understand their…
In the context of exoplanet detection, the performance of coronagraphs is limited by wavefront errors. To efficiently correct for these aberrations with a deformable mirror, it is mandatory to measure them using the science detector with a…