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Suppressing speckle noise for simultaneous differential extrasolar planet imaging (SDI) at the VLT and MMT
- Source :
- Advancements in Adaptive Optics.
- Publication Year :
- 2004
- Publisher :
- SPIE, 2004.
-
Abstract
- We discuss data reduction techniques and results from the Simultaneous Differential Imager (SDI) implemented at the VLT (Lenzen et al. 2004a) and the MMT. SDI uses a quad filter to take images simultaneously at 3 wavelengths surrounding the 1.62 μm methane bandhead found in the spectrum of cool brown dwarfs and gas giants. By performing a difference of images in these filters, speckle noise from the primary can be attenuated by a factor of >102. Non-trivial data reduction tools are necessary to pipeline the simultaneous differential imaging. Here we discuss a custom algorithm implemented in IDL to perform this reduction. The script performs basic data reduction tasks but also precisely aligns images taken in each of the filters using a custom shift and subtract routine. In our commissioning runs at the VLT and MMT, we achieved contrasts up to a factor of 45000 (ΔH=11.7) at a separation of 0.6" from the primary star. With this degree of attenuation, we should be able to image a 2-4 Jupiter mass planet at 5 AU around a 30 Myr star at 10 pc. We believe that our SDI images are the highest contrast astronomical images ever made from ground or space.
Details
- ISSN :
- 0277786X
- Database :
- OpenAIRE
- Journal :
- Advancements in Adaptive Optics
- Accession number :
- edsair.doi...........2993073d17ec35dec7d66d5a1aa500de