Spiderweb Masks for High-Contrast Imaging
arXiv:astro-ph/0303049 · doi:10.1086/374971
Abstract
Motivated by the desire to image exosolar planets, recent work by us and others has shown that high-contrast imaging can be achieved using specially shaped pupil masks. To date, the masks we have designed have been symmetric with respect to a cartesian coordinate system but were not rotationally invariant, thus requiring that one take multiple images at different angles of rotation about the central point in order to obtain high-contrast in all directions. In this paper, we present a new class of masks that have rotational symmetry and provide high-contrast in all directions with just one image. These masks provide the required 10^{-10} level of contrast to within 4 lambda/D, and in some cases 3 lambda/D, of the central point, which is deemed necessary for exosolar planet finding/imaging. They are also well-suited for use on ground-based telescopes, and perhaps NGST too, since they can accommodate central obstructions and associated support spiders.
20 pages, 9 figures, to appear in ApJ
References in corpus (2)
Cited by in corpus (31)
- Theoretical Limits on Extrasolar Terrestrial Planet Detection with Coronagraphs
- Circularly Symmetric Apodization via Starshaped Masks
- Optimal Occulter Design for Finding Extrasolar Planets
- Rectangular-Mask Coronagraphs for High-Contrast Imaging
- Design, analysis and test of a microdots apodizer for the Apodized Pupil Lyot Coronagraph
- High Contrast Imaging with an Arbitrary Aperture: Active Correction of Aperture Discontinuities
- First On-Sky High Contrast Imaging with an Apodizing Phase Plate
- Apodized Pupil Lyot Coronagraphs for Arbitrary Apertures. IV. Reduced Inner Working Angle and Increased Robustness to Low-Order Aberrations
- Optimal Asymmetric Apodizations and Shaped Pupils for Planet Finding Coronagraphy
- Pupil Mapping in 2-D for High-Contrast Imaging
- Linear and Bayesian Planet Detection Algorithms for the Terrestrial Planet Finder
- Eighth-Order Image Masks for Terrestrial Planet Finding
- Apodized phase mask coronagraphs for arbitrary apertures. II. Comprehensive review of solutions for the vortex coronagraph
- Apodized phase mask coronagraphs for arbitrary apertures
- Experimental demonstration of binary shaped pupil mask coronagraphs for telescopes with obscured pupils
- Fast Fourier Optimization: Sparsity Matters
- Laboratory Experiment of Checkerboard Pupil Mask Coronagraph
- Coronographic Methods for the Detection of Terrestrial Planets
- SPICA infrared coronagraph for the direct observation of exo-planets
- Using Notch-Filter Masks for High Contrast Imaging of Extrasolar Planets
- A Binary Shaped Mask Coronagraph for a Segmented Pupil
- Optimal pupil apodizations for arbitrary apertures
- Multi-Color Coronagraph Experiment in a Vacuum Testbed with a Binary Shaped Pupil Mask
- Comparative study of manufacturing techniques for coronagraphic binary pupil masks: masks on substrates and free-standing masks
- Improvements on Fresnel arrays for high contrast imaging
- Apodization in high-contrast long-slit spectroscopy. Closer, deeper, fainter, cooler
- Redundant apodization for direct imaging of exoplanets I: Robustness to primary mirror segmentation-induced errors outside the segment diffraction limit
- Coronagraphic demonstration experiment using aluminum mirrors for space infrared astronomical observations
- Redundant apodization for direct imaging of exoplanets 2: Application to island effects
- Bayesian Hypothesis Testing for Planet Detection
- Diffraction of Apodized Pupil Mapping Systems with Aberrations