Development of a Precision Stellar Coronagraph for Imaging Exoplanets, Brown Dwarfs and Disks

American Museum Natural History, New York NY

Investigators

Abstract

AST-0215793 Oppenheimer, Ben R. This project will produce a new coronagraph system to extend the well-understood and tested techniques of the classical coronagraph at the 3.67 meter Advanced Electro-Optical System (AEOS) telescope of the United States Air Force observatory at Haleakela, Maui, Hawaii. AEOS is equipped with a very high order (960 elements) adaptive optics unit to correct for atmospheric turbulence. The AEOS adaptive optics unit dramatically surpreses the seeing halo between radii of 0.2 and 1.5 arcseconds at a wavelength of 1.6 micrometers. It is within this region of the spatial information domain that enables compelling scientific analysis for the nearby vicinities of brown dwarfs, super-Jupiter planets, extra-solar system zodiacal dust disks. This instrumentation development establishes a new instrumentation program to provide graduate students in New York City to peruse instrumentation-based research programs. Undergraduates from an all-women college in New York will participate. ***