The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope (Roman) formerly known as the Wide-Field Infrared Survey Telescope will answer fundamental questions about the evolution of dark energy over time and expand the catalog of known exoplanets into new regions of parameter space. Using a Hubble-sized mirror and 18 newly developed HgCdTe 4K × 4K photodiode arrays (H4RG-10), the Roman Space Telescope will measure the

The payload of the Faint Intergalactic Redshifted Emission Balloon (FIREBall-2), the second generation of the FIREBall instrument (PI: C. Martin, Caltech), has been calibrated and launched from the NASA Columbia Scientific Balloon Facility in Fort Sumner, New Mexico. FIREBall-2 was launched for the first time on the September 22, 2018, and the payload performed the very first multi-object acquisition

We present the current status of Hα high-contrast imaging observations with Subaru/Subaru Coronagraphic Extreme Adaptive Optics + VAMPIRES. Our adaptive optics correction at optical wavelengths in combination with (double) spectral differential imaging (SDI) and angular differential imaging (ADI) was capable of resolving a ring feature around omi Cet and detect the Hα counterpart of jet around RY Tau

Future space telescopes with coronagraph instruments will use a wavefront sensor (WFS) to measure and correct for phase errors and stabilize the stellar intensity in high-contrast images. The HabEx and LUVOIR mission concepts baseline a Zernike wavefront sensor (ZWFS), which uses Zernike’s phase contrast method to convert phase in the pupil into intensity at the WFS detector. In preparation for these

The Kepler mission was a National Aeronautics and Space Agency (NASA) Discovery-class mission designed to continuously monitor the brightness of at least 100,000 stars to determine the frequency of Earth-size and larger planets orbiting other stars. Once the Kepler proposal was chosen for a flight opportunity, it was necessary to optimize the design to accomplish the ambitious goals specified in the

We have fabricated a blazed x-ray reflection grating with a period of 160 nm using thermally activated selective topography equilibration (TASTE) and electron-beam (ebeam) physical vapor evaporation. TASTE makes use of grayscale ebeam lithography to create three-dimensional (3-D) structures in resist, which can then be thermally reflown into a desired profile. A blazed grating profile can be fabricated

The NASA/ASI imaging x-ray polarimetry explorer, which will be launched in 2021, will be the first instrument to perform spatially resolved x-ray polarimetry on several astronomical sources in the 2- to 8-keV energy band. These measurements are made possible owing to the use of a gas pixel detector (GPD) at the focus of three x-ray telescopes. The GPD allows simultaneous measurements of the interaction

Echelle Spectrograph for Rocky Exoplanets and Stable Spectroscopic Observations (ESPRESSO) is the latest instrument installed at the European Southern Observatory (ESO)-Very Large Telescope (VLT) site in Chile. To fulfill its scientific requirements, ESPRESSO can operate both in 1-UT mode (using any of the four VLT unit telescopes) and in 4-UT mode. In 4-UT mode, the light of the four 8-m telescopes

This erratum corrects the omission of authors and references from the paper as it was originally published.

Multiobject spectroscopy is applied in numerous modern astronomical facilities conducting observations of a large number of targets per pointing. Assigning the maximum number of targets to these instruments requires efficient algorithms. We present a simple and effective algorithm, the averaging (Aver) algorithm, to maximize the number of assigned targets for the first few visits of a given field.

Next-generation radio telescopes, such as the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) and Next Generation Very Large Array (ngVLA), require precise microwave frequency reference signals to be transmitted over fiber links to each dish to coherently sample astronomical signals. Such telescopes employ phase stabilization systems to suppress the phase noise imparted on the reference signals by environmental perturbations

I describe the plans, flows, key facilities, test beds, pathfinders, simulators, and ground support equipment that could be used to fully integrate, functionally test, and qualify the Origins Space Telescope (Origins). The Origins observatory consists of the spacecraft bus module and the cryogenic payload module, which comprises the telescope and three science instruments. The telescope is a three-mirror

HERMES is a scientific mission composed of 3U nanosatellites dedicated to the detection and localization of high-energy astrophysical transients, with a distributed space architecture to form a constellation in Earth orbits. The space segment hosts novel miniaturized detectors to probe the x-ray temporal emission of bright events, such as gamma-ray bursts, and the electromagnetic counterparts of gravitational

Effective area is one of the most important parameters of x-ray telescopes. It can be increased by enlarging the entrance aperture or maximizing the reflectivity through the proper designing and optimization of the reflecting coating. A method to increase the reflectivity of grazing incidence x-ray mirrors in the 0.5- to 8-keV energy region is analyzed. The idea consists in the use of a trilayer reflecting

Deformable mirrors (DMs) are a critical technology to enable coronagraphic direct imaging of exoplanets with current and planned ground- and space-based telescopes as well as future mission concepts, such as the Habitable Exoplanet Observatory and the Large UV/Optical/IR Surveyor. The latter concepts aim to image exoplanet types ranging from gas giants to Earth analogs. This places several requirements

Stellar coronagraphs rely on deformable mirrors (DMs) to correct wavefront errors and create high-contrast images. Imperfect control of the DM limits the achievable contrast, and therefore, the DM control electronics must provide fine surface height resolution and low noise. We study the impact of quantization errors due to the DM electronics on the image contrast using experimental data from the High

The time-resolved soft x-ray spectrometer (TSXS) aboard on the X-ray Pulsar Navigation Test Satellite is an x-ray timing spectrometer covering the energy range of 0.5 to 10 keV. It is China’s first focusing x-ray telescope launched into space orbit. The optical system of TSXS is an x-ray grazing incidence focusing system with a field of view 15 arc min, which is nested with 4 parabolic mirrors with

With the advent of 30- to 40-m class ground-based telescopes in the mid-2020s, direct imaging of exoplanets is bound to take a new major leap. Among the approved projects, the Mid-infrared Extremely Large Telescope (ELT) Imager and Spectrograph (METIS) instrument for the ELT holds a prominent spot; by observing in the mid-infrared regime, it will be perfectly suited to study a variety of exoplanets

The study of cold or obscured, red astrophysical sources can significantly benefit from adaptive optics (AO) systems employing infrared (IR) wavefront sensors. One particular area is the study of exoplanets around M-dwarf stars and planet formation within protoplanetary disks in star-forming regions. Such objects are faint at visible wavelengths but bright enough in the IR to be used as a natural guide

Space-based nulling interferometry is one of the most promising solutions to spectrally characterize the atmosphere of rocky exoplanets in the mid-infrared (3 to 20 μm). It provides both high angular resolution and starlight mitigation. This observing capability depends on several technologies. A CubeSat (up to 20 kg) or a medium satellite (up to a few hundreds of kg), using a Bracewell architecture

Over its more than 30-year history, the Advanced Technologies and Instrumentation (ATI) program has provided grants to support technology development and instrumentation for ground-based astronomy. Through a combination of automated literature assessment and in-depth literature review, we present a survey of ATI-funded research and its impact on astronomy and society. Award acknowledgment and literature

Vortex coronagraphs have been shown to be a promising avenue for high-contrast imaging in the close-in environment of stars at thermal infrared (IR) wavelengths. They are included in the baseline design of the mid-infrared extremely large telescope imager and spectrograph. To ensure good performance of these coronagraphs, a precise control of the centering of the star image in real time is needed.

We study the optical properties of glass exposed to ionizing radiation as it occurs in the space environment. Twenty-four glass types have been considered, both space-qualified and not space-qualified. Seventy-two samples (3 for each glass type) have been irradiated to simulate total doses of 10 and 30 krad imposed by a proton beam at KVI-Centre of Advanced Radiation Technology (Groeningen). Combining

Multilayer (ML) thin film coatings have shown promise in achieving hard x-ray nanofocusing with high reflectivity and high resolution. The chemical, structural, and long-term stability of Ir/B4C MLs, which are of great interest to the synchrotron and astrophysics communities, are not yet fully understood. The evolution of the x-ray performance of Ir/B4C ML mirrors was monitored over 5 years, and the

Advanced Telescope for High-Energy Astrophysics is a large-class astrophysics space mission selected by the European Space Agency to study the theme “Hot and Energetic Universe.” The mission essentially consists of a large effective area x-ray telescope and two detectors: the X-ray Integral Field Unit (X-IFU) and the Wide Field Imager (WFI). Both instruments require filters to shield from out-of-band

The MAGIC telescopes are a system of two imaging atmospheric Cherenkov telescopes designed to observe very-high-energy γ rays. MAGIC utilizes a large reflective surface and photodetectors with ultrafast time response to capture Cherenkov photons. These features, together with the dedicated system installed in the central photomultiplier tube of their camera, so-called central pixel system (CPS), turn

The use of mesh filters for millimeter-wave applications using capacitive and inductive grids is well known, and they are widely used in cosmic microwave background instrumentation. We report on an investigation into whether the capacitive square shape typically used in low-pass filter designs could be improved. The microgenetic algorithm and the finite-difference time-domain, and electromagnetic modeling

Over recent years, several independent groups have pursued the realization of a modern stellar intensity interferometry (SII) system to perform high angular resolution observations at optical wavelengths. Here, we present a general purpose SII observation planner (ASIIP) that can be used to aid in SII observational efforts. ASIIP can be used to coordinate and prioritize SII observations based on observational

Larger mirrors are needed to satisfy the requirements of the next generation of UV–Vis space telescopes. Our study attempts to meet this requirement by demonstrating a technology that would deploy a large, continuous, high figure accuracy membrane mirror. The figure of the membrane mirror is corrected after deployment using a contiguous coating of a magnetic smart material (MSM) and a magnetic field

Motivated by the potential of nondiffraction limited, real-time computational image sharpening with neural networks in astronomical telescopes, we studied wavefront sensing with convolutional neural networks based on a pair of in-focus and out-of-focus point spread functions. By simulation, we generated a large dataset for training and validation of neural networks and trained several networks to estimate

In the field of ground-based telescopes, laser guide stars (LGS) are artificial stars formed in the sky to serve as a reference for the adaptive optics. The artificial star should have a small lateral extent as this is an important factor for how well the adaptive optics can compensate for atmospheric turbulence. The laser launch telescope (LLT) is a key component of the LGS facility. It uses an afocal

The Habitable-Zone Exoplanet Observatory Mission (HabEx) is one of four large missions under review for the 2020 astrophysics decadal survey. Its goal is to directly image and spectroscopically characterize planetary systems in the habitable zone around nearby Sun-like stars. In addition, HabEx will perform a broad range of general astrophysics science enabled by a 115- to 1700-nm spectral range and

PHASECam is the fringe tracker for the Large Binocular Telescope Interferometer (LBTI). It is a near-infrared camera that is used to measure both tip/tilt and fringe phase variations between the two adaptive optics-corrected apertures of the Large Binocular Telescope (LBT). Tip/tilt and phase sensing are currently performed in the H (1.65 μm) and K (2.2 μm) bands at 1 kHz, but only the K-band phase

The coded aperture imaging technique is a useful method of x-ray imaging in observational astrophysics. However, the presence of imaging noise or so-called artifacts in a decoded image is a drawback of this method. We propose a coded aperture imaging method using multiple different random patterns for significantly reducing the image artifacts. This aperture mask contains multiple different patterns

The infrared sky brightness level is an important parameter for infrared astronomical observation from the ground. It is necessary to obtain the infrared sky brightness level at an observatory site to evaluate the feasibility of infrared telescopes and instruments. In order to evaluate the possibility of developing infrared astronomical observations at several sites in China, the design of a continuous-scanning

Interference fringes are a major source of systematic error in astronomical spectropolarimeters. We apply the Berreman formalism with recent spatial fringe aperture averaging estimates to design and fabricate new fringe-suppressed polarization optics for several Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope (DKIST) use cases. We successfully performed an optical contact bond on a 120-mm-diameter compound crystal

X-ray transients are among the most enigmatic objects in the cosmic sky. In recent years, the unpredictability and underlying nature of their transient behavior has prompted many studies. While significant progress has been made in this field, a more complete understanding of such events is often hampered by the delay in the rapid follow-up of any transient event. An efficient way to mitigate this

Space coronagraphs are projected to detect exoplanets that are at least 1010 times dimmer than their host stars. Yet, the actual detection threshold depends on the instrument’s wavefront stability and varies by an order of magnitude with the choice of observation strategy and postprocessing method. We consider the performance of the previously introduced observation strategy (dark hole maintenance)

Direct detection and characterization of extrasolar planets has become possible with powerful new coronagraphs on ground-based telescopes. Space telescopes with active optics and coronagraphs will expand the frontier to imaging Earth-sized planets in the habitable zones of nearby Sun-like stars. Currently, NASA is studying potential space missions to detect and characterize such planets, which are

The Soft X-ray Spectrometer (SXS) instrument that flew on the Astro-H observatory was designed to perform imaging and spectroscopy of x-rays in the energy range of 0.2 to 13 keV with a resolution requirement of 7 eV or better. This was accomplished using a 6x6 array of x-ray microcalorimeters cooled to an operating temperature of 50 mK by an adiabatic demagnetization refrigerator (ADR). The ADR consisted

The James Webb Space Telescope near-infrared camera (JWST NIRCam) has two 2'. 2 × 2'.2 fields of view that can be observed with either imaging or spectroscopic modes. Either of two R ∼ 1500 grisms with orthogonal dispersion directions can be used for slitless spectroscopy over λ = 2.4 - 5.0 μm in each module, and shorter wavelength observations of the same fields can be obtained simultaneously. We

Differential optical transfer function (dOTF) is an image-based, noniterative wavefront sensing method that uses two star images with a single small change in the pupil. We describe two possible methods for introducing the required pupil modification to the James Webb Space Telescope, one using a small (<λ/4) displacement of a single segment's actuator and another that uses small misalignments of the

This is an introduction to a US government program that conducted high-contrast imaging experiments with an electron multiplying charge coupled device (EMCCD) in an interferometric coronagraph. This report will introduce the concepts of "charge blooming" and "starlight saturation" in the context of high-contrast astronomical imaging. These phenomena adversely effect the performance of high-contrast