*** WELCOME TO THE UCSB EXOPLANET POLARIMETRY LAB HOMEPAGE ***Last updated: Oct 6, 2026NEWS · 2026-10-02: Recruiting a new graduate studentNEWS · 2026-10-02: Onward and upwardNEWS · 2026-08-25: First-light paper for the NIRC2 polarimeterNEWS · 2026-08-19: Dr. Rebecca ZhangNEWS · 2026-04-15: Postdoc Position at UC BerkeleyPlease sign our guestbook before you leave!Best viewed in Netscape Navigator 4.0 at 800x600 *** WELCOME TO THE UCSB EXOPLANET POLARIMETRY LAB HOMEPAGE ***Last updated: Oct 6, 2026NEWS · 2026-10-02: Recruiting a new graduate studentNEWS · 2026-10-02: Onward and upwardNEWS · 2026-08-25: First-light paper for the NIRC2 polarimeterNEWS · 2026-08-19: Dr. Rebecca ZhangNEWS · 2026-04-15: Postdoc Position at UC BerkeleyPlease sign our guestbook before you leave!Best viewed in Netscape Navigator 4.0 at 800x600

Millar-Blanchaer
Research Group

University of California, Santa Barbara

EXOPLANETS · POLARIMETRY · HIGH-CONTRAST IMAGING

WIRC+POL ~/instrumentation/wircpol

← Back to Instrumentation

WIRC+Pol is a new polarimetry mode for the WIRC camera at the Palomar 200-inch telescope that provides R~100 spectropolarimetry in the J and H-bands. A description of the initial 2017 upgrade can be found in Tinyanont, Millar-Blanchaer et al., 2019a. In 2019 I led a further upgrade of the instrument to include a rotatable half-wave plate (Tinyanont, Millar-Blanchaer et al., 2019b). Post-upgrade characterization puts our instrumental polarization at <0.05%, well below the ~0.1% needed for our brown dwarf and exoplanet survey (Millar-Blanchaer et al. 2020).

An image of me in the Palomar prime-focus cage floating 15m above the primary mirror where we installed the new WIRC+Pol upgrade.
An image of me in the Palomar prime-focus cage floating 15m above the primary mirror where we installed the new WIRC+Pol upgrade.
A demonstration of the spectropolarimetric precision of WIRC+Pol in the J-band after the 2019 upgrade. Image reproduced from Tinyanont, Millar-Blanchaer et al., 2019b. We are now beginning routine operations of WIRC+Pol, which is being used for a brown dwarf and exoplanet survey (see my Science section), as well as observations of supernova, asteroids and protoplanetary disks.
A demonstration of the spectropolarimetric precision of WIRC+Pol in the J-band after the 2019 upgrade. Image reproduced from Tinyanont, Millar-Blanchaer et al., 2019b. We are now beginning routine operations of WIRC+Pol, which is being used for a brown dwarf and exoplanet survey (see my Science section), as well as observations of supernova, asteroids and protoplanetary disks.