Date	Speaker	Topic
22.09.2017 (10hrs, HdA)		First talk after the summer break
29.09.2017 (10hrs, HdA)	Theodoros Anagnos (ZAH, LSW)	Simulation and Optimization of an Astrophotonic Reformatter Image slicing is a powerful technique in astronomy. It allows the instrument designer to reduce the angular slit width of the spectrograph, increasing spectral resolving power, whilst retaining throughput. Conventionally this is done using bulk optics, such as mirrors and prisms, however more recently astro-photonic components known as photonic lanterns and photonic reformatters have also been used. These devices reformat the multimode input light from a telescope into single mode outputs, which can then be re-arranged to suit the spectrograph. The photonic dicer is one such device, an integrated photonic reformatter (image slicer) designed to reduce the dependence of spectrograph size on telescope aperture and eliminate "modal noise". In this talk Theodoros Anagnos will describe his work simulating the photonic dicer by using both an adaptive optics simulator and a beam propagation software. He will show the combined results and compare them to on-sky data. Furthermore, he will show optimisations to the design of the device, improving throughput and making it more compact. Finally, the significance of these findings in terms of future designs of devices will be discussed, including their influence on adaptive optics instruments. Presentation: English Slides: English Questions: German, English
06.10.2017 (10hrs, HdA)	Julien Milli (ESO)	Current performance and future prospects of the extreme-AO instrument SPHERE after 3 years of operations on Paranal SPHERE is the high-contrast exoplanet imager at the VLT. After more than 2 years of regular operations, we will review the performance of the infrared channel. A specific emphasis will be put on the dependence of the performance of the AO system with the atmospheric conditions encountered at the Paranal observatory, as measured by the suite of dedicated instruments which are part of the astronomical site monitor and as seen by the SPHERE real-time calculator. We will detail how this information can be used to plan the observations, and to guide the astronomer when processing his/her data. Presentation: English Slides: English Questions: German, English
13.10.2017	--	No talk (MPIA Science Day)
20.10.2017 (10hrs, HdA)
27.10.2017 (10:30hrs, HdA)	Nicolas Baroan (NIT)	Novel Scientific high dynamic range SWIR camera: technology, capabilities and application in astronomy High Dynamic Range is being widely adopted in different markets, like automotive, Industrial machine vision, defense… Scientific cameras, usually driven by low light performances and extended Wavelength spectral response, is now considered also as a potential “consumer” of these emerging extended dynamic range devices. Developed with its patented High Dynamic Range Pixel structure and with the LPA expertise in optronics ( i.e. : Laboratoire Pierre Aigrain – Ecole Nationale Supérieure ), NIT and LPA will present the first scientific Short Wave Infrared High dynamic Range camera. The deep cooled camera performances and features will be illustrated through an interesting astronomy application case made at the “Pic du Midy” Observatory at the top of the French Pyrenees. A comparison with a state of the art cooled InGaAs camera, in similar conditions, will briefly be described. Presentation: English Slides: English Questions: English
03.11.2017 (10hrs, HdA)
10.11.2017 (11hrs, MPIA lecture hall)	Wolfgang Gaessler	4MOST - An Update The 4MOST project upgrades the 4m VISTA telescope on Paranal to a spectroscopic facility. Two low resolution spectrographs (R ~ 5000) and one high resolution spectrograph (R ~ 20000) are fed with light from 2400 fibers. In the first 10 years of operation, 4MOST will serve 11 surveys of the responsible consortium. In addition, whole community surveys are planned to observe nearly everything on sky (except for exoplanets): individual stars in the Milky Way galaxy and in the Magellanic Clouds, AGN, supernovae and their hosts, quasars, LRGs, ELGs, and galaxy clusters. Wolfgang Gaessler will give a project update and will explain interesting technical features in more detail. Presentation: German Slides: English Questions: German, English
17.11.2017 (10hrs, HdA)	Hans J. Kaercher (MT Mechatronics GmbH)	Thinking in Forces (as a Tool for designing Telescope Structures) What is a force? One can start reflecting about it and philosophers have written whole books about this question. Ludwig Buechner, a „middle-class materialist“ of the 19th century wrote in his book „Kraft und Stoff“: „Kraft kann nichts weiter sein als eine Eigenschaft der Materie“, or „Kräfte lassen sich nicht mitteilen, sondern nur wecken“, and in this sense he is obviously with Isaac Newton, who is the originator of "thinking in forces" following his famous observation of the falling apple. Much later this led to the special engineering branch "structural mechanics", which was originally applied to bridge and building construction, lateron even in the more sophisticated branch of aerospace engineering. „Thinking in forces“ in the form of "graphical structural analysis" became a branch of engineering in the middle of the 19th century. This enables to think in both the "physical space" and the "force space", i.e. besides a design drawing also a force diagram is required. This is similar to projective geometry, where also dual spaces exist. Hans Kaercher will explain this approach in three examples: 1) designing reflectors for radio telescopes; 2) designing primary mirror supports for large optical telescopes; 3) designing tracking mounts for large optical elements. These examples will be discussed in the framework of design contributions to different telescope projects, like e.g. the radio telescope LMT/GTM, the IR telescope SOFIA and the optical telescope ELT. Presentation: German Slides: English Questions: German, English
24.11.2017 (10hrs, HdA)
01.12.2017 (10hrs, HdA)	Thomas Henning	Perspectives in Astronomy The talk will discuss the new and currently investigated U.S. initiatives for large space missions. In this context a special focus will be set onto the characterization of extrasolar planets. Presentation: German Slides: German Questions: German, English
08.12.2017 (10hrs, HdA)	Philipp Hottinger (ZAH, LSW)	3D-printed microlens-array as tip-tilt sensor In this talk Philipp Hottinger introduces the possibility to use a microlens-array (MLA) as tip-tilt sensor device with integrated single mode fiber coupling. A first prototype has been presented by Dietrich & Harris et al. (2017) and is directly printed onto a multi-core fiber consisting of 7 single mode cores. Philipp Hottinger will present his ongoing work on further development of this device. This includes characterization, modeling and on-sky requirements for upcoming testing at the iLocater spectrograph at the LBT. Presentation: German Slides: English Questions: German, English
15.12.2017 (10hrs, HdA)	Olivier Absil (Université de Liège)	Five years of harvest with the vortex coronagraph While the concept of vortex coronagraphy dates back to 2005, the first science-grade Annular Groove Phase Masks (AGPM), working in the thermal infrared regime, have been installed at the VLT only in 2012. They are now also equipping the Keck telescope and the Large Binocular Telescope, and will soon be at the core of more ground-based high-contrast imaging instruments. In this talk, Olivier Absil will shortly review the technology development undertaken over the last 10 years, and describe the on-sky operations and performance of the vortex coronagraph. He will then present the main scientific results obtained since 2012, and explain how his team has recently adapted deep learning techniques to the problem of post-processing in high-contrast imaging. He will finally discuss the perspectives with new instruments, including the Breakthrough Watch project. Presentation: English Slides: English Part1 Part2 Questions: German, English
22.12.2017 (10hrs, HdA)		Last talk before the Christmas break