Astron. Astrophys. Suppl. Ser. 133, 395-402

Present performance of the dark-speckle coronagraph

A. Boccaletti^1,3 - C. Moutou^2,3 - A. Labeyrie^2,3 - D. Kohler² - F. Vakili⁴

Send offprint request: A. Boccaletti

1 - DESPA, Observatoire de Paris-Meudon, 5 place J. Janssen, F-92195 Meudon, France
e-mail: Boccalet@despa.obspm.fr
2 - Observatoire de Haute-Provence, F-04870 St-Michel l'Observatoire, France
e-mail: Moutou@obs-hp.fr, Labeyrie@obs-hp.fr
3 - Collège de France, 11 place M. Berthelot F-75321 Paris, France
4 - Observatoire de la Côte d'Azur, Département Fresnel, GI2T, F-06460 Saint Vallier de Thiey, France
e-mail: Vakili@obs-azur.fr

Received March 19; accepted June 17, 1998

Abstract:

We present the recent developments of the dark speckle coronagraph and results obtained on two close binary stars. The central star is occulted by a Lyot coronagraphic system and the residual speckle pattern is detected on a photon-counting camera. Achromaticity is achieved across a wide spectral band, using a Wynne corrector. We observed the relatively faint companions of $\delta$ Per and $\eta$ Psc and give an independent estimate of their position and magnitude difference.

Key words: planetary systems -- stars: $\delta$ Per, $\eta$ Psc, $\eta$ And -- instrumentation: interferometers; miscellaneous