SPHERE - Spectro-Polarimetric High-contrast Exoplanet Research
ESO's "Planet Finder" and 2nd-gen VLT instrument
ESO's "Planet Finder" SPHERE is a 2nd generation VLT instrument, which started its operation at the telescope in 2014. The Institute for Particle Physics and Astrophysics is a member of the international consortium, which build the SPHERE hardware and we are actively participating in the consortium’s Guaranteed Time Observing (GTO) program.
Since 2014, SPHERE it is one of the best, if not the best, high contrast and high resolution imager available in Astronomy. The instrument achieves an angular resolution of up to 20 milli-arcsec and it is equipped with an extreme adaptive optics (AO) system, coronagraphs and differential imagers for high contrast observations. For this instrument we were leading the development of the Zurich IMaging PO-Larimeter (ZIMPOL), which is the visual focal plane camera of SPHERE operating in the wavelength range from 500 to 900 nm. ZIMPOL is optimized for high performance imaging polarimetry for the search of reflecting planets and the imaging of reflected light from circumstellar disk and shells, as well as for high resolution imaging of hydrogen gas with narrow Halpha filters.
SPHERE has made many important contributions in high contrast imaging, in particular the detection of new extra-solar planets, the photometric and spectroscopic characterization of known extra-solar planets and brown dwarfs, the detection of extended emission of scattered light for many circumstellar disks, the first high resolution images of many other targets like stellar jets, circumstellar dust shells, or solar system asteroids.
Recent SPHERE publications from our group include:
Hunziker et al. 2020 external pageRefPlanets: Search for reflected light from extrasolar planets with SPHERE/ZIMPOL
Engler et al. 2020 external pageHD 117214 debris disk: scattered-light images and constraints on the presence of planets
Cugno et al. 2019 external pageA search for accreting young companions embedded in circumstellar disks. High-contrast Hα imaging with VLT/SPHERE
More information: