[Previous] | [Session 77] | [Next]
A. Sivaramakrishnan, R. B. Makidon (STScI), J. P. Lloyd, B. R. Oppenheimer, J. R. Graham, P. G. Kalas (UC Berkeley), B. A. Macintosh, C. E. Max (LLNL), P. Baudoz, J. Kuhn, D. Potter (IfA)
The 3.6m Air Force Electo-Optical System telescope is the most advanced adaptive optics (AO) system available to the astronomical community. Its 941-channel AO system feeds several stable instrument platforms at a very slow Cassegrain focus. Its small secondary obscuration makes it ideal for AO coronagraphy. We present estimates of current and theoretical limits on dynamic range using a diffraction-limited Lyot coronagraph optimized for the 3.6m AEOS telescope. We incorporate both the effects of imperfect AO correction of the wavefront and telescope guiding errors in our simulations. We calculate limits on faint companion detection (in the H-band) for this system at separations between 0.36 and 1.3 arcseconds.