Development of Coronagraphic Techniques




table test


The Development of Coronagraphic Techniques Program was started by Pete Nisenson. I continued the program after his untimely passing. The program has two core topics:

1. the Development of Occulter Masks and

2. the demonstration of the Labeyrie Multi-Step Speckle Reduction Method.

For the testing of the occulter masks, we have set up a mask scanner and a coronagraphic testbed. The coronagraphic testbed will also be used for the demonstration of the Labeyrie multi-step speckle reduction technique. The pictures below show the mask scanner and the testbed. This program is a collaboration with Drs. Gary Melnick and Sylvain Korzennik, SAO, Prof. Mike Aziz, Harvard University, Dr. Richard Lyon, GSFC, Drs. Robert Woodruff, Gopal Vasudevan, and Steven Somerstein, LMCO, and Prof. emer. Robert Gonsalves, Tufts University.