Search

The Keck Interferometer Nuller (KIN) is one of the major scientific and technical precursors to the Terrestrial Planet Finder Interferometer (TPF-I) mission. KIN's primary objective is to measure the level of exo-zodiacal mid-infrared emission around nearby main sequence stars, which requires deep broad-band nulling of astronomical sources of a few Janskys at 10 microns. A number of new capabilities are needed in order to reach that goal with the Keck telescopes: mid-infrared coherent recombination, interferometric operation in 'split pupil' mode, N-band optical path stabilization using K-band fringe tracking and internal metrology, and eventually, active atmospheric dispersion correction. We report here on the progress made implementing these new functionalities, and discuss the initial levels of extinction achieved on the sky.

We present 1.6-4.7μm images of PPNe and young PNe recently obtained with the Keck Adaptive Optics (AO) system. These observations provide higher angular resolution and probe deeper into the dusty envelopes of post-AGB objects than HST images and, therefore, show with unprecedented detail the morphology of these nebulae. Some objects have limbbrightened lobes displaying a remarkable point-like symmetry, which suggests the presence of underlying precessing jets that may be carving out the nebular lobes. Our images also show a very rich structure at the very small scale of ∼0. 1, including jet-like features, arcs, searchlight beams, as well as faint, extended halos in a number of objects.