Spectro-Polarimetric High-contrast Exoplanet REsearch is an adaptive optics system and coronagraphic facility at the Very Large Telescope. It provides direct imaging as well as spectroscopic and polar
SPHERE (black container and silver cylinder) attached to the telescope from the adjunct platform
The star HR 7581 (Iota Sgr) was observed in SPHERE survey mode. A very low-mass star, more than 4000 times fainter than its parent star, was discovered orbiting Iota Sgr at a tiny separation of 0.24". The bright star itself has been suppressed almost completely by SPHERE, to allow the faint companion to appear as a clear bright spot to the upper right of the centre.
This infrared image shows the dust ring around the nearby star HR 4796A in the southern constellation of Centaurus. It was one of the first produced by the SPHERE instrument soon after it was installed on ESO's Very Large Telescope in May 2014. It shows not only the ring itself with great clarity, but also reveals the power of SPHERE to reduce the glare from the very bright star — the key to finding and studying exoplanets in future.
The SPHERE exoplanet imager for the VLT
DH Tauri
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DH Tauri, also known as DH Tau, is a type M star, located 140 parsecs away. It forms a binary system with DI Tauri 15″ away, and has a substellar companion, either a brown dwarf or massive exoplanet.
DH Tauri and the b companion (lower left) with the Very Large Telescope Credit: ESO VLT SPHERE; Van Holstein et al.; Processing: Meli_thev