Related papers: Introduction to stellar coronagraphy
A major science goal of future, large-aperture, optical space telescopes is to directly image and spectroscopically analyze reflected light from potentially habitable exoplanets. To accomplish this, the optical system must suppress…
We describe a coronagraphic optic for use with CONICA at the VLT that provides suppression of diffraction from 1.8 to 7 lambda/D at 4.05 microns, an optimal wavelength for direct imaging of cool extrasolar planets. The optic is designed to…
Potentially habitable planets around nearby stars less massive than solar-type stars could join targets of the spectroscopy of the planetary reflected light with future space telescopes. However, the orbits of most of these planets occur…
Context. Proxima Cen b is the prime target for the search of life around a nearby exoplanet by characterizing its atmosphere in reflected light. Due to the very high star/companion contrast (<1E-6), High Dispersion Coronagraphy is the most…
Extra-solar planets have not been imaged directly with existing ground or space telescopes because they are too faint to be seen against the halo of the nearby bright star. Most techniques being explored to suppress the halo are achromatic,…
We report on the performance of a vector apodizing phase plate coronagraph that operates over a wavelength range of $2-5 \mu$m and is installed in MagAO/Clio2 at the 6.5 m Magellan Clay telescope at Las Campanas Observatory, Chile. The…
Less than 3% of the known exoplanets were directly imaged for two main reasons. They are angularly very close to their parent star, which is several magnitudes brighter. Direct imaging of exoplanets thus requires a dedicated instrumentation…
The Apodized Pupil Lyot Coronagraph (APLC) is a diffraction suppression system installed in the recently deployed instruments Palomar/P1640, Gemini/GPI, and VLT/SPHERE to allow direct imaging and spectroscopy of circumstellar environments.…
Small-angle coronagraphy is technically and scientifically appealing because it enables the use of smaller telescopes, allows covering wider wavelength ranges, and potentially increases the yield and completeness of circumstellar…
A simple, yet powerful, algorithm for computed tomography of the solar corona is presented and demonstrated using synthetic EUV data. A minimum of three perspectives are required. These may be obtained from STEREO/EUVI plus an instrument…
Imaging terrestrial exoplanets around nearby stars is a formidable technical challenge, requiring the development of coronagraphs to suppress the stellar halo of diffracted light at the location of the planet. In this review, we derive the…
Diluted arrays of many optical apertures will be able to provide h igh-resolution snapshot images if the beams are combined according to the densified-pupil scheme. We show that the same principle can also provide coronagraphic images, for…
Broadband coronagraphy with deep nulling and small inner working angle has the potential of delivering images and spectra of exoplanets and other faint objects. In recent years, many coronagraphic schemes have been proposed, the most…
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…
We propose a coronagraphic system with fourth-order null for off-axis segmented telescopes, which is sufficiently insensitive to the telescope pointing errors and finite angular diameter of the host star to enable high-contrast imaging of…
The number of terrestrial exoplanets accessible to high-contrast coronagraphic imaging with large telescopes is limited by the smallest angular offset from bright stars at which coronagraphs can observe. However, it is possible to reach…
In a previous paper, we discussed an original solution to improve the performances of coronagraphs by adding, in the optical scheme, an adaptive hologram removing most of the residual speckle starlight. In our simulations, the detection…
We present the concept of a binary shaped mask coronagraph applicable to a telescope pupil including obscuration, based on previous works on binary shaped pupil mask by \citet{Kasdin2005} and \citet{Vanderbei1999}. Solutions with…
Direct imaging of exoplanets or circumstellar disk material requires extreme contrast at the 10-6 to 10-12 levels at < 100 mas angular separation from the star. Focal-plane mask (FPM) coronagraphic imaging has played a key role in this…
An ideal coronagraph with a band-limited image mask can efficiently image off-axis sources while removing identically all of the light from an on-axis source. However, strict mask construction tolerances limit the utility of this technique…