MagAO-X is the coronagraphic extreme adaptive optics system for the 6.5m Magellan Clay Telescope. We report the results of commissioning the first phase of MagAO-X. Components now available for routine observations include: the >2kHz high-order control loop consisting of a 97 actuator woofer deformable mirror (DM), a 2040 actuator tweeter DM, and a modulated pyramid wavefront sensor (WFS); classical Lyot coronagraphs with integrated low-order (LO) WFS and control using a third 97-actuator non-common path correcting (NCPC) DM; broad band imaging in g, r, i, and z filters with two EMCCDs; simultaneous differential imaging in Hα; and integral field spectroscopy with the VIS-X module. Early science results include the discovery of an Hα jet, images of accreting protoplanets at Hα, images of young extrasolar giant planets in the optical, discovery of new white dwarf companions, resolved images of evolved stars, and high-contrast images of circumstellar disks in scattered light in g-band (500nm). We have commenced an upgrade program, called “Phase II”, to enable high-contrast observations at the smallest inner working angles possible. These upgrades include a new 952 actuator NCPC DM to enable coronagraphic wavefront control; phase induced amplitude apodization coronagraphs; new fast cameras for LOWFS and Lyot-LOWFS; and real-time computer upgrades. We will report the status of these upgrades and results of first on-sky testing in March-May 2024.
The upcoming Extremely Large Telescopes have the angular resolution and light collecting area that is necessary to observe biosignatures in the atmospheres of Earth-like planets. High-contrast imaging instruments will play a large role in this because observing planets directly overcomes many of the observational limitations of other exoplanet detection techniques. The influence of the bright star can be significantly reduced by spatially resolving the dim planet, allowing characterization of the planet and its atmosphere. However, the required wavefront sensing, and control (WFS&C) technologies have yet to be proven on-sky. The Magellan Adaptive Optics eXtreme (MagAO-X) instrument is a new visible to near-infrared high-contrast imaging system that operates as a testbed for the development and testing of WFS&C techniques.
MagAO-X is a visible to near-IR AO system that will enable a suite of instruments to perform high-contrast, high-resolution science. During its "Phase II" plan a 10-kilopixel Microwave Kinetic Inductance Detector (MKID) IFU will be deployed as a science camera behind MagAO-X. MKIDs are photon-counting detectors with energy resolution up to 30. The photon counting capability and readout allow for microsecond time resolution with no associated read noise. As a consequence of the high readout rate the MKID camera can be used as a Focal Plane Wavefront Sensor (FPWFS) allowing real-time speckle control while simultaneously taking science observations. With the high resolution and contrasts delivered by MagAO-X the MKID camera will aim to directly image and characterize exoplanets in the near-IR. The camera's IR filters can also be replaced with visible filters that will allow for further characterization and the potential for exploration of the inner regions of circumstellar disks.
We present an on-sky demonstration of a post-processing technique for companion detection called Stochastic Speckle Discrimination (SSD) and its ability to improve the detection of faint companions using SCExAO and the MKID Exoplanet Camera (MEC). Using this SSD technique, MEC is able to resolve companions at a comparable signal to noise to other integral field spectrographs solely utilizing photon arrival time information and without the use of any PSF subtraction techniques. SSD takes advantage of photon counting detectors, like the MKID detector found in MEC, to directly probe the photon arrival time statistics that describe the speckle field and allows us to identify and distinguish problematic speckles from companions of comparable brightness in an image. This technique is especially effective at close angular separations where the speckle intensity is large and where traditional post-processing techniques, like ADI, suffer.
We develop a simple coordinate transformation that can be employed to compensate for the nonlinearity introduced by a microwave kinetic inductance detector’s (MKID) homodyne readout scheme. This coordinate system is compared to the canonically used polar coordinates and is shown to improve the performance of the filtering method often used to estimate a photon’s energy. For a detector where the coordinate nonlinearity is primarily responsible for limiting its resolving power, this technique leads to increased dynamic range, which we show by applying the transformation to data from a hafnium MKID designed to be sensitive to photons with wavelengths in the 800- to 1300-nm range. The new coordinates allow the detector to resolve photons with wavelengths down to 400 nm, raising the resolving power at that wavelength from 6.8 to 17.
The Planetary Imaging Concept Testbed Using a Recoverable Experiment-Coronagraph (PICTURE-C) experiment is a balloon-borne observatory for high-contrast imaging of debris disks and exoplanets around nearby stars. This experiment will use a 10,000-pixel Microwave Kinetic Inductance Detector (MKID) instrument as its science camera. The PICTURE-C MKID Camera is an integral field spectrograph (IFS) with a bandpass of λ = 540 − 660 nm that sits behind a modest adaptive optics system and coronagraph which promise to achieve contrast ratios down to 10-7 from 1.7 to 10 λ/D (0.35” to 2.1”). The MKIDs are photon counting detectors promising a resolution R up to 20 for the PICTURE-C mission. The ability to count photons with microsecond time resolution will allow the MKID camera to double as a Focal Plane Wavefront Sensor (FPWFS), helping to discriminate between speckles and circumstellar objects in real time and in post-processing. The intrinsic spectral resolution of the detectors will allow for further characterization of the debris disks and exoplanets around the stars targeted during its flight. The visible light observations taken with this instrument will complement infrared observations taken from the ground and serve to demonstrate MKIDs utility in a space-like environment. For this poster, we will introduce and discuss the PICTURE-C MKID Camera.
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