About

What are the goals of this website?

High contrast imaging (HCI) is a hot topic in astronomy that incorporates different skills ranging from hardware handling, code writing and sharing to knowledge in optics and astronomical research. There are a number of different HCI testbeds out there that explore the technology that facilitates the detection of faint companions and circumstellar material. We have found that while progress from the different labs gets regularly published in papers and presented at conferences, it is currently hard to get an overview of what group is doing what and how they are doing it. Personal experience has shown us that this often leads to missed opportunities in learning from each other and failing to identify points of contact for collaborations.

The aim of this initiative is to avoid reinventing the wheel and while we will depend on the expertise from our senior colleagues, we are aiming especially for more junior people in the field. Our intention is to share resources on a more practical level, ranging from sharing best coding practices to caveats during the installation of new hardware, which are all things that lead to the results being published, but usually don't make it into the information being shared. We would like to provide a forum for discussion and learning, where information is exchanged more regularly, and provide a possibility of keeping track of who is doing what.

How do we want to accomplish these goals?

The concept of this project was anticipated as low maintenance, in which any person can provide updates when they have something to share that is not significant enough to publish classically as a scientific result, but could be a new approach to a problem occurring in HCI labs and testbeds. This website is intended to serve as the platform for this. Our initial idea was to use it for the following:

  • Having static information about testbeds in the Testbeds section of the website, incentivizing updates every six months with an email reminder.
  • Updating a News section with any sort of news contributors want to put out there. If you have a website or blog on which you post your own articles or news, this can be incorporated over an RSS feed.
  • Organizing informal meetings at events like SPIE to talk about the "behind the scenes" of the individual working groups. No talks or major presentations are intended for this, and the aim is to incentivize the exchange of knowledge about doing things.

We want to hear from you!

For this reason, any feedback is highly appreciated, as well as ideas for the project and how to organize things, as well as people who want to join the organization and administration!

Who are we?

Iva Laginja

I am a Research and Instrument Analyst at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, Maryland. I am part of the Makidon Optics laboratory and I am taking care of the JWST Optical Simulation Testbed (JOST), implementing and testing algorithms for wavefront sensing and control. Sharing the facilities with the High contrast imager for Complex Aperture Telescopes (HiCAT) testbed, we are developing communal codes for hardware and software control of the two testbeds, contributing major work to the field of high contrast imaging. I got my Bachelor’s degrees in Astronomy and Physics at the University of Vienna and obtained a Master’s degree in Astronomy and Instrumentation at Leiden University in the Netherlands before joining STScI in September 2017.


Lucie Leboulleux

I am a post-doctorate researcher from the Observatoire de Paris working on high-contrast imaging. I developed an analytical method called PASTIS to provide fast and complete error budgets for segmented telescopes dedicated to exoplanet detection, typically for LUVOIR/Habex/ELT-like applications. I also spent my PhD working on the High-contrast imager for Complex Aperture Telescopes (HiCAT), a testbed located in the Russel B. Makidon optics laboratory of the STScI. This experience made me want to get involved in the communication between labs over the world. In addition I dedicate some of my time to outreach activites, in particular with children and teenagers, and art & science projects.

Photo credit: NASA/Desiree Stover

Keira Brooks

I am an Astronomical Optics Scientist at Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI), mainly involved with projects relating to the Optical Telescope Element of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). These have included projects include software support for testing the optical performance of the primary mirror, modeling the effects of observatory stability on coronagraphy, and supporting wavefront sensing and control and guiding during commissioning. In addition to my day-to-day work, I have worked in the Russell B. Makidon Optics Lab at STScI with the High contrast imager for Complex Aperture Telescopes (HiCAT) testbed and currently lead the efforts on the JWST Optical Simulation Testbed (JOST). As the lab technician for HiCAT, I developed software for the calibration of the testbed and individual hardware components, as well as occasional hardware support. On JOST, I balance software upgrades, hardware work, and project management. I received my Masters in Astronomy with a focus in Instrumentation from Leiden University in 2016.


Rebecca Jensen-Clem

I am a Miller Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of California, Berkeley, Department of Astronomy, working on exoplanet imaging and polarimetry. I'm currently leading a demonstration of predictive wavefront control at W. M. Keck Observatory in order to push our sensitivity to extremely faint exoplanets located at small angular separations from their host stars. I am also using GPI and SPHERE to hunt for polarized thermal emission from currently known directly imaged planets -- an as yet unexploited means of studying the clouds that shroud giant exoplanet atmospheres. In 2017, I received a PhD in Astrophysics from Caltech, where I worked on the commissioning of Robo-AO, a robotic laser guide star AO system, at the Kitt Peak 2.1-m telescope. I also pursue my interests in the future of space-based exoplanet science as part of the Executive Committee of NASA's Exoplanet Exploration Program Analysis Group (ExoPAG).