Paranal cleanroom

This image shows a man at work in the the Paranal cleanroom. THe and his team are working to assemble an Annular Groove Phase Mask (AGPM) which, when installed in a camera, enables high-contrast imaging at very small inner working angles, potentially opening up new possibilities in high-resolution imaging. The part will be installed at the Paranal site onto the near-infrared camera and spectrograph 'CONICA', part of NACO — the VLT’s adaptive optics workhorse instrument. To learn more about this instrument read the article in issue 152of the messenger.