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

AST-0215793 Oppenheimer，Ben R.该项目将产生一个新的日冕观测系统，以扩展夏威夷毛伊岛Haleakela美国空军天文台3.67米高级光电系统望远镜上已被充分理解和测试的经典日冕观测技术。AEOS配备了一个非常高阶（960个元件）的自适应光学单元，以校正大气湍流。 AEOS自适应光学装置可在1.6微米波长下显著抑制半径为0.2和1.5角秒之间的视晕。 正是在这一空间信息领域的区域内，才能够对附近的褐矮星、超级木星行星、太阳系外的黄道尘埃盘进行令人信服的科学分析。 这种仪器开发建立了一个新的仪器计划，为纽约市的研究生提供研究仪器为基础的研究计划。 纽约一所女子学院的本科生将参加。***

AST-0215793Oppenheimer, 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. ***