Astronomical demonstration of an optical vortex coronagraph

Abstract

Using an optical vortex coronagraph and simple adaptive optics techniques, we have made the first convincing demonstration of an optical vortex coronagraph that is coupled to a star gazing telescope. We suppressed by 97% the primary star of a resolvable binary system, Cor Caroli. The stars had an angular separation of 1.9lambda/D at our imaging camera. The secondary star suffered no suppression from the vortex lens.