In Spring 2013, the LEECH (LBTI Exozodi Exoplanet Common Hunt) survey began
its ∼130-night campaign from the Large Binocular Telescope (LBT) atop Mt
Graham, Arizona. This survey benefits from the many technological achievements
of the LBT, including two 8.4-meter mirrors on a single fixed mount, dual
adaptive secondary mirrors for high Strehl performance, and a cold beam
combiner to dramatically reduce the telescope's overall background emissivity.
LEECH neatly complements other high-contrast planet imaging efforts by
observing stars at L' (3.8 μm), as opposed to the shorter wavelength
near-infrared bands (1-2.4 μm) of other surveys. This portion of the
spectrum offers deep mass sensitivity, especially around nearby adolescent
(∼0.1-1 Gyr) stars. LEECH's contrast is competitive with other extreme
adaptive optics systems, while providing an alternative survey strategy.
Additionally, LEECH is characterizing known exoplanetary systems with
observations from 3-5μm in preparation for JWST.Comment: 12 pages, 5 figures. Proceedings of the SPIE, 9148-2