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[en] In November 2012, we installed an L-band annular groove phase mask (AGPM) vector vortex coronagraph (VVC) inside NACO, the adaptive optics camera of ESO's Very Large Telescope. The mask, made out of diamond subwavelength gratings has been commissioned, science qualified, and is now offered to the community. Here we report ground-breaking on-sky performance levels in terms of contrast, inner working angle, and discovery space. This new practical demonstration of the VVC, coming a few years after Palomar's and recent record-breaking lab experiments in the visible (E. Serabyn et al. 2013, these proceedings), shows once again that this new-generation coronagraph has reached a high level of maturity.
Disciplines :
Space science, astronomy & astrophysics
Author, co-author :
Mawet, Dimitri; European Southern Observatory (Chile)
Absil, Olivier ; Université de Liège - ULiège > Département d'astrophys., géophysique et océanographie (AGO) > Astroph. extragalactique et observations spatiales (AEOS)
Milli, Julien; European Southern Observatory (Chile)
Delacroix, Christian ; Université de Liège - ULiège > Département d'astrophys., géophysique et océanographie (AGO) > Astroph. extragalactique et observations spatiales (AEOS)
Girard, Julien H.; European Southern Observatory (Chile)
O'Neal, Jared; European Southern Observatory (Chile)
Baudoz, Pierre; LESIA - Observatoire de Paris (France)
Boccaletti, Anthony; Univ. de Liège (Belgium)
Bourget, Pierre; European Southern Observatory (Chile)
Forsberg, Pontus; Uppsala Univ. (Sweden)
Gonté, Frederic; European Southern Observatory (Chile)
Habraken, Serge ; Université de Liège - ULiège > Département de physique > Optique - Hololab
Karlsson, Mikael; Uppsala Univ. (Sweden)
Kasper, Markus; European Southern Observatory Headquarters (Germany)
Lagrange, Anne-Marie; IPAG, CNRS, Univ. Joseph Fourier (France)
Lizon, Jean-Louis; European Southern Observatory (Chile)
Muzic, Koraljka; European Southern Observatory (Chile)
Peña, Eduardo; European Southern Observatory (Chile)
Olivier, Richard; GDTech s.a., LIEGE Science Park (Belgium)
Slusarenko, Nicolas; European Southern Observatory (Chile)
Tacconi-Garman, Lowell E.; European Southern Observatory Headquarters (Germany)
Surdej, Jean ; Université de Liège - ULiège > Département d'astrophys., géophysique et océanographie (AGO) > Astroph. extragalactique et observations spatiales (AEOS)
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