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

oppenheimer, Ben r .该项目将生产一种新的日冕系统，以扩展位于夏威夷毛伊岛Haleakela的美国空军天文台3.67米先进光电系统（AEOS）望远镜上的经典日冕仪，这些日冕仪已经得到了充分的理解和测试。AEOS配备了一个非常高阶（960个元件）自适应光学单元来校正大气湍流。AEOS自适应光学单元在波长为1.6微米的情况下，显著地在半径为0.2到1.5弧秒之间产生观测晕。正是在这个空间信息域的区域内，对附近的褐矮星、超级木星行星、太阳系外黄道带尘埃盘进行了令人信服的科学分析。这种仪器的发展建立了一个新的仪器程序，以提供研究生在纽约市细读仪器为基础的研究程序。来自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. ***