Abstract We propose a high-contrast coronagraph for direct imaging of young Jupiter-like planets orbiting nearby bright stars. The coronagraph employs a steptransmission filter in which the intensity is apodized with a finite number of steps with identical transmission in each step. It should be installed on a large ground-based telescope equipped with a state-of-the-art adaptive optics system. In this case, contrast ratios around 10-6 should be accessible within 0.1 arcsec of the central star. In recent progress, a coronagraph with a circular apodizing filter has been developed, which can be used for a ground-based telescope with a central obstruction and spider structure. It is shown that ground-based direct imaging of Jupiter-like planets is promising with current technology.

Keywords instrumentation: high angular resolution—methods: laboratory, numerical — techniques: coronagraphy, apodization— planetary systems

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