PALM-3000: Exoplanet Adaptive Optics for the 5-meter Hale Telescope

TL;DR

PALM-3000 is a second-generation adaptive optics system for the Hale Telescope, enabling high-contrast imaging and spectroscopy of exoplanets and brown dwarfs with advanced wavefront correction capabilities.

Contribution

This paper introduces PALM-3000, a novel adaptive optics system with a large deformable mirror, achieving high-contrast imaging and supporting exoplanet characterization.

Findings

Residual wavefront error of 141 nm RMS under 1 arcsecond seeing

Phase conjugation correction over 6.4 x 6.4 arcseconds at 2.2 microns

Successful commissioning of five science instruments and initiation of exoplanet survey

Abstract

We describe and report first results from PALM-3000, the second-generation astronomical adaptive optics facility for the 5.1-m Hale telescope at Palomar Observatory. PALM-3000 has been engineered for high-contrast imaging and emission spectroscopy of brown dwarfs and large planetary mass bodies at near-infrared wavelengths around bright stars, but also supports general natural guide star use to V ~ 17. Using its unique 66 x 66 actuator deformable mirror, PALM-3000 has thus far demonstrated residual wavefront errors of 141 nm RMS under 1 arcsecond seeing conditions. PALM-3000 can provide phase conjugation correction over a 6.4 x 6.4 arcsecond working region at an observing wavelength of 2.2 microns, or full electric field (amplitude and phase) correction over approximately one half of this field. With optimized back-end instrumentation, PALM-3000 is designed to enable as high as 10e-7 contrast at ~1 arc second angular separation, after including post-observation speckle suppression processing. While optimization of the adaptive optics system is ongoing, we have already successfully commissioned five back-end science instruments and begun a major exoplanet characterization survey, Project 1640, with our partners at American Museum of Natural History and Jet Propulsion Laboratory.