Astronomical demonstration of an optical vortex coronagraph
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Updated: Jul 3, 2026

Bringing the Visible Universe into Focus with Robo-AO
Published on: February 12, 2013
Grover A Swartzlander1, Erin L Ford, Rukiah S Abdul-Malik
1College of Optical Sciences, University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona 85721, USA. grover.swartzlander@gmail.com
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.
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