SPHERE: the exoplanet imager for the Very Large Telescope

Observations of circumstellar environments to look for the direct signal of exoplanets and the scattered light from disks has significant instrumental implications. In the past 15 years, major developments in adaptive optics, coronagraphy, optical manufacturing, wavefront sensing and data processing, together with a consistent global system analysis have enabled a new generation of high-contrast imagers and spectrographs on large ground-based telescopes with much better performance. One of the most productive is the Spectro-Polarimetic High contrast imager for Exoplanets REsearch (SPHERE) designed and built for the ESO Very Large Telescope (VLT) in Chile. SPHERE includes an extreme adaptive optics system, a highly stable common path interface, several types of coronagraphs and three science instruments. Two of them, the Integral Field Spectrograph (IFS) and the Infra-Red Dual-band Imager and Spectrograph (IRDIS), are designed to efficiently cover the near-infrared (NIR) range in a single observation for efficient young planet search. The third one, ZIMPOL, is designed for visible (VIR) polarimetric observation to look for the reflected light of exoplanets and the light scattered by debris disks. This suite of three science instruments enables to study circumstellar environments at unprecedented angular resolution both in the visible and the near-infrared. In this work, we present the complete instrument and its on-sky performance after 4 years of operations at the VLT.Comment: Final version accepted for publication in A&

Installation and commissioning of FLAMES, the VLT Multifibre Facility

International audienceFLAMES (Fibre Large Array Multi Element Spectrograph) is the VLT Fibre Facility, installed and commissioned at the Nasmyth A focus of UT2 (Kueyen Telescope). FLAMES was built and assembled in about four years through an international collaboration between ten institutes in six countries and three continents. It had first light with the fibre link to the red arm of UVES on April 1, and with the GIRAFFE spectrograph on July 3. We report here on the complex process of integration and commissioning, and we compare the expected and observed astronomical requirements

CANARY Phase B: the LGS upgrade to the CANARY tomographic MOAO pathfinder

International audienc

CANARY:the On-Sky NGS/LGS MOAO demonstrator for EAGLE

International audienc

CANARY Phase B: the LGS upgrade to the CANARY tomographic MOAO pathfinder

International audienc

CANARY Phase B: the LGS upgrade to the CANARY tomographic MOAO pathfinder

International audienc

Status update of the canary on-sky MOAO demonstrator

International audienceThe CANARY on-sky MOAO demonstrator is being integrated in the laboratory and a status update about its various components is presented here. We also discuss the alignment and calibration procedures used to improve system performance and overall stability. CANARY will be commissioned at the William Herschel Telescope at the end of September 2010

X-shooter: UV-to-IR intermediate-resolution high-efficiency spectrograph for the ESO VLT

X-shooter is a single target spectrograph for the Cassegrain focus of one of the VLT UTs. It covers in a single exposure the spectral range from the UV to the H band with a possible extension into part of the K band. It is designed to maximize the sensitivity in this spectral range through the splitting in three arms with optimized optics, coatings, dispersive elements and detectors. It operates at intermediate resolutions (R=4000-14000, depending on wavelength and slit width) sufficient to address quantitatively a vast number of astrophysical applications while working in a background-limited S/N regime in the regions of the spectrum free from strong atmospheric emission and absorption lines. The small number of moving functions (and therefore instrument modes) and fixed spectral format make it easy to operate and permit a fast response. A mini-IFU unit (1.8" x 4") can be inserted in the telescope focal plane and is reformatted in a slit of 0.6"x 12" .The instrument includes atmospheric dispersion correctors in the UV and visual arms. The project foresees the development of a fully automatic data reduction package. The name of the instrument has been inspired by its capability to observe in a single shot a source of unknown flux distribution and redshift. The instrument is being built by a Consortium of Institutes from Denmark, France, Italy and the Netherlands in collaboration with ESO. When it operation, its observing capability will be unique at very large telescopes