SHARK-NIR, toward the installation at the Large Binocular Telescope

Abstract

SHARK-NIR in an instrument that will provide direct imaging, coronagraphic imaging, dual band imaging and low resolution spectroscopy in Y, J and H bands, and it will be soon installed at the Large Binocular Telescope. Used in combination with SHARK-VIS (operating in V band) and LMIRCam of LBTI (operating from K to M bands), SHARKNIR will exploit coronagraphic simultaneous observations in three different wavelengths. Exoplanets search and characterization, young stellar systems, jets and disks are the main science cases, but the extreme performance of the LBT AO systems, above all in the faint end regime, will allow to open to science difficult to be achieved from other similar instruments, such as AGN and QSO morphological studies. A variety of coronagraphic techniques have been implemented, as the Gaussian Lyot, Shaped Pupil and Four Quadrant masks, with the aim to possibly have a suitable coronagraphic masks for each science case, since the coronagraphic requirement in term of contrast and inner and outer working angle are depending on the target and on the science to be achieved. We report here about the SHARK-NIR status, that should be installed at LBT in mid-2021 © 2020 SPIE.