A visible-light Lyot coronagraph for SCExAO/VAMPIRES

We describe the design and initial results from a visible-light Lyot coronagraph for SCExAO/VAMPIRES. The coronagraph is comprised of four hard-edged, partially transmissive focal plane masks with inner working angles of 36 mas, 55 mas, 92 mas and 129 mas, respectively. The Lyot stop is a reflective, undersized design with a geometric throughput of 65.7%. Our preliminary on-sky contrast is 10−2 at 0.1 ′′ to 10−4 at 0.75′′ for all mask sizes. The coronagraph was deployed in early 2022 and is available for open use.