Adaptive Optics for Extremely Large Telescopes III FIRST EXOPLANET AND DISK RESULTS WITH THE PALM-3000 ADAPTIVE OPTICS SYSTEM

We describe the status of the PALM-3000 adaptive optics facility instrument for the Hale telescope at Palomar Observatory. Since first light in June 2011, PALM-3000 has made significant advances in both performance and sensitivity. Using strehl ratio as our performance metric, we present results in 64x64 and 32x32 wavefront sensor pupil sampling modes on a range of guide stars from mv = 0 to 16. We describe our automated reconstructor pipeline tool, which incorporates pupil illumination and an optimal-estimator Bayesian approach to boost faint guide star performance. We conclude by presenting initial high-contrast circumstellar disk results from the PHARO vector vortex coronagraph and exoplanet spectra from the P1640 integral field spectrograph.