Starship Asterisk*

The planet Beta Pictoris b imaged using the Apodizing Phase Plate coronagraph. The “bad” (bright) side of the image is visible to the right while the central bright regions of Beta Pictoris have been masked out clearly revealing the planet to the left of the star. [i](Image: ESO[/i])

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UA astronomers have developed a way to see faint planets previously hidden in their star's glare. The new mode enables scientists to search for planets closer to the star than has been previously possible.

Using new optics technology developed at the University of Arizona's Steward Observatory, an international team of astronomers has obtained images of a planet on a much closer orbit around its parent star than any other extrasolar planet previously found.

The discovery, published online in Astrophysical Journal Letters, is a result of an international collaboration among the Steward Observatory, the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich, the European Southern Observatory, Leiden University in the Netherlands and Germany's Max-Planck-Institute for Astronomy.

Installed on the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope, or VLT, atop Paranal Mountain in Chile, the new technology enabled an international team of astronomers to confirm the existence and orbital movement of Beta Pictoris b, a planet about seven to 10 times the mass of Jupiter, around its parent star, Beta Pictoris, 63 light years away.

At the core of the system is a small piece of glass with a highly complex pattern inscribed into its surface. Called an Apodizing Phase Plate, or APP, the device blocks out the starlight in a very defined way, allowing planets to show up in the image whose signals were previously drowned out by the star's glare.

• Astrophysical Journal Letters 722(1) L49 (10 Oct 2010) DOI: 10.1088/2041-8205/722/1/L49
  arXiv.org > astro-ph > arXiv:1009.0538 > 02 Sep 2010

bystander wrote:Planet Hunters no Longer Blinded by the Light
University of Arizona | Steward Observatory | 15 Oct 2010

Using new optics technology developed at the University of Arizona's Steward Observatory, an international team of astronomers has obtained images of a planet on a much closer orbit around its parent star than any other extrasolar planet previously found. At the core of the system is a small piece of glass with a highly complex pattern inscribed into its surface. Called an Apodizing Phase Plate, or APP, the device blocks out the starlight in a very defined way, allowing planets to show up in the image whose signals were previously drowned out by the star's glare.

• First Results From VLT NACO Apodizing Phase Plate:
  4-micron Images of the Exoplanet beta Pictoris b

An APPetizing Glaze Plate for our own pXZie Tori:

BMAONE23 wrote:
APODizing Phase Plate
I just knew APOD was good for something else

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apodization wrote:

the 'Airy disk

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<<Apodization literally means "removing the foot". It is the technical term for changing the shape of a mathematical function, an electrical signal, an optical transmission or a mechanical structure. An example of apodization is the use of the Hann window in the Fast Fourier transform analyzer to smooth the discontinuities at the beginning and end of the sampled time record.

In optical design jargon, an apodization function is used to purposely change the input intensity profile of an optical system, and may be a complicated function to tailor the system to certain properties. Usually it refers to a non-uniform illumination or transmission profile that approaches zero at the edges. Apodization is used in telescope optics in order to improve the dynamic range of the image. For example, stars with low intensity in the close vicinity of very bright stars can be made visible using this technique. Generally, apodization reduces the resolution of an optical image; however, because it reduces diffraction edge effects, it can actually enhance certain small details. In fact the notion of resolution, as it is commonly defined with the Rayleigh criterion, is in this case partially irrelevant. One has to understand that the image formed in the focal plane of a lens (or a mirror) is modelized through the Fresnel diffraction formalism. The classical diffraction pattern, the Airy disk, is connected to a circular pupil, without any obstruction and with a uniform transmission.>>

neufer wrote:

BMAONE23 wrote:
APODizing Phase Plate
I just knew APOD was good for something else

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apodization wrote:
(SNIP)
Apodization literally means "removing the foot". (SNIP)