High Contrast Imaging with the New Vortex Coronagraph on NACO
- Creators
- Mawet, Dimitri
Abstract
The installation and successful commissioning of an L'-band annular groove phase mask (AGPM) coronagraph on VLT/NACO is presented. The AGPM is a vector vortex coronagraph made from diamond sub-wavelength gratings tuned to the L'-band. The vector vortex coronagraph enables high-contrast imaging at very small inner working angles (here 0.09 arcseconds, the diffraction limit of the VLT at L'), potentially opening up a new parameter space in high-resolution imaging. During technical and science verification runs, we discovered a late-type companion at two beamwidths from an F0V star, and imaged the inner regions of β Pictoris down to the previously unexplored projected radius of 1.75 astronomical units. The circumstellar disc of β Pic was also resolved from 1 to 5 arcseconds. These results showcase the potential of the NACO L'-band AGPM over a wide range of spatial scales.
Additional Information
© 2013 European Southern Observatory.Attached Files
Published - messenger-no152-8-13.pdf
Files
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Additional details
- Eprint ID
- 57850
- Resolver ID
- CaltechAUTHORS:20150527-093543432
- Created
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2015-05-27Created from EPrint's datestamp field
- Updated
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2019-10-03Created from EPrint's last_modified field