Supriya Chakrabarti, Timothy Cook, Meredith Danowski,

Ewan Douglas, Brian Hicks, Olli-Pekka Jokiaho,

Jason Martel and Christopher Mendillo

• Science Questions

• Direct imaging of Exoplanet

• Interplanetary, interstellar and intergalactic media

• Planetary atmospheres

• Technology Development

• Instrumentation: Optics, detector, techniques

• Space based (rocket, satellite and balloons)

• Ground based (airglow, aurora, forestry)

• Education and Outreach

• Hands-on involvement in space missions and experimental work

• Graduate, undergraduate and high school students

• Middle School Curriculum developed

• Women in science

• Science Questions

• The level of zodiacal dust emission from disks around nearby

stars is an unknown but crucial factor for designing planet

finding missions

• Technology Development

• Very light weight mirror: Areal density ~20 kg m-2

• Nulling Interferometer

• Pointing and tracking at a few mas

• MEMS Deformable mirror

• Education and Outreach

• Hands-on involvement in space missions by graduate students

Backman et al. (2009)

14.9 arc sec (217 λ/d)

Semi-major axis

of Fomalhaut b is

115 AU

Eps Eri b

• Launched October 8, 2011

• See Chris Mendillo’s poster

• Technology Success

• Light weight mirror survived launch

• Pointing and tracking at 1.5 mas

• Technology “Anomaly”

• 2 out of 3 telemetry system worked – science channel

failed

• Cannot tell if the DM or the nuller worked or how well

• Motivation

• See Continuous

observations like RADAR

• Equatorial Spread-F triggers

• Observations of cusp

emissions under sunlit

conditions

• Approach

• Use an echelle

spectrograph without a

cross-disperser

Features Required wavelength

coverage

Required spectral

resolution

Hα (656.3nm) ≥ 6nm ≤0.1 nm

Hβ (486.1 nm) ≥ 7nm ≤0.4 nm

O 557.7 nm ≥ 1nm ≤0.03 nm

O 630.0nm ≥ 1nm ≤0.03 nm

O 777.4 nm ≥ 1nm ≤0.03 nm

N2+ 427.8 nm ≥ 3nm ≤0.1 nm

Four slits!

• Science

• Exoplanet

• Refly PICTURE

• Interstellar dust (IMAGER)

• Electron/Proton Aurora (HiT&MIS)

• Ionospheric Studies (LITES, Balloon, HIRISE)

• Tool Development

• Nulling Interferometry (MANIC)

• Other Internal and External Coronagraph

• Optics and instruments for future experiments (including CUBESat)

• Dual Wavelength Echidna LIDAR (a tool for carbon trading issues)

• Monolithic construction

• Optically bonded prisms

• Michelson with π field flip

• Centro-symmetric

interferometric null

• Suitable for exoplanet

detection

Our Need

Good experimentally-inclined

students