Coronagraph module, part of SCAO module, under design at Lagrange at the Observatory of Côte d'Azur.
Main science case: Rocky exoplanet reflected light detection is one of the highest priorities of ANDES.. The coronagraph will be used to spatially separate the planet from the star and then hide the light from the star to improve the planet-to-star contrast.
Figure from Palle et al. 2023 (click here): Assumptions, SNR = 5 reached in few minutes, Strehl ratios of 0.3 in Y-band (0.6 in H band), Low piston mode, without Coronagraph (left) and with Lyot Coronagraph (right).
Manpower, Hardware, design, integration/tests, performance simulations done at Lagrange.
We aim to use the already-in-place instrumental platform (SPEED) at OCA for testing aims. SPEED (Segmented Pupil Experiment for Exoplanet Detection, https://www.oca.eu/fr/accueil-speed) aims at exploring imaging observation methods with a segmented telescope geared towards very small angular separations in the perspective of next-generation ground/space observatories.
Foreseen collaborations in France: IPAG (Grenoble) and LAM (Marseille) and link with HARMONI experience.
In Europe: Florence and Geneve observatories.