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WIRC+Pol is a newly commissioned low-resolution (R ∼ 100), near-infrared (J and H bands) spectropolarimetry mode of the Wide-field InfraRed Camera (WIRC) on the 200 inch Hale Telescope at Palomar Observatory. The instrument utilizes a novel polarimeter design based on a quarter-wave plate and a polarization grating (PG), which provides full linear polarization measurements (Stokes I, Q, and U) in one exposure. The PG also has high transmission across the J and H bands. The instrument is situated at the prime focus of an equatorially mounted telescope. As a result, the system only has one reflection in the light path providing minimal telescope induced polarization. A data reduction pipeline has been developed for WIRC+Pol to produce linear polarization measurements from observations. WIRC+Pol has been on-sky since 2017 February. Results from the first year commissioning data show that the instrument has a high dispersion efficiency as expected from the polarization grating. We demonstrate the polarimetric stability of the instrument with rms variation at 0.2% level over 30 minutes for a bright standard star (J = 8.7). While the spectral extraction is photon noise limited, polarization calibration between sources remain limited by systematics, likely related to gravity dependent pointing effects. We discuss instrumental systematics we have uncovered in the data, their potential causes, along with calibrations that are necessary to eliminate them. We describe a modulator upgrade that will eliminate the slowly varying systematics and provide polarimetric accuracy better than 0.1%.

WIRC+Pol is a newly commissioned low-resolution (R ∼ 100), near-infrared (J and H bands) spectropolarimetry mode of the Wide-field InfraRed Camera (WIRC) on the 200 inch Hale Telescope at Palomar Observatory. The instrument utilizes a novel polarimeter design based on a quarter-wave plate and a polarization grating (PG), which provides full linear polarization measurements (Stokes I, Q, and U) in one exposure. The PG also has high transmission across the J and H bands. The instrument is situated at the prime focus of an equatorially mounted telescope. As a result, the system only has one reflection in the light path providing minimal telescope induced polarization. A data reduction pipeline has been developed for WIRC+Pol to produce linear polarization measurements from observations. WIRC+Pol has been on-sky since 2017 February. Results from the first year commissioning data show that the instrument has a high dispersion efficiency as expected from the polarization grating. We demonstrate the polarimetric stability of the instrument with rms variation at 0.2% level over 30 minutes for a bright standard star (J = 8.7). While the spectral extraction is photon noise limited, polarization calibration between sources remain limited by systematics, likely related to gravity dependent pointing effects. We discuss instrumental systematics we have uncovered in the data, their potential causes, along with calibrations that are necessary to eliminate them. We describe a modulator upgrade that will eliminate the slowly varying systematics and provide polarimetric accuracy better than 0.1%.

The HADES Europa mission concept aims to provide a framework for an astrobiological in-depth investigation of the Jupiter moon Europa, relying on existing technologies and feasibility. This mission study proposes a system consisting of an orbiter, lander and cryobot as a platform for detailed exploration of Europa. While the orbiter will investigate the presence of a liquid ocean and characterize Europa's internal structure, the lander will survey local dynamics of the ice layer and the surface environment. The lander releases a cryobot, that melts into the ice, will sample the pristine subsurface and is expected to provide data on organic and gaseous content and putative bio-signatures. In summary, we present the scientific objectives for an astrobiological investigation of Europa, resulting in a mission concept with a detailed evaluation of scientific instrumentation, mission sequences, basic design of the spacecraft, technology needs and cost estimations.

The NASA Exoplanet Archive and the Exoplanet Follow-up Observing Program service are two widely used resources for the exoplanet community. The NASA Exoplanet Archive provides a complete and accurate accounting of exoplanetary systems published by NASA missions and by the community in the refereed literature. In anticipation of continued exponential growth in the number of exoplanetary systems, and the increasing complexity in our characterization of these systems, the NASA Exoplanet Archive has restructured its primary tables and interfaces, as well as extending and standardizing their modes of access. The Exoplanet Follow-up Observing Program service provides the exoplanet community with a venue for coordinating and sharing follow-up and precursor data for exoplanets, their host stars, and stars that might eventually be targets for future planet searches, and recently reached one million files uploaded by the community. In this paper we describe the updates to our data holdings, functionality, accessibility, and tools, as well as future priorities for these two services.

We present the results of a deep high-contrast imaging search for planets around Vega. Vega is an ideal target for high-contrast imaging because it is bright, nearby, and young with a face-on two-belt debris disk which may be shaped by unseen planets. We obtained \\(J-\\) and \\(H-\\)band data on Vega with the coronagraphic integral-field spectrograph Project 1640 (P1640) at Palomar Observatory. Two nights of data were obtained in 2016, in poor seeing conditions, and two additional nights in more favorable conditions in 2017. In total, we obtained 5.5 hours of integration time on Vega in moderate to good seeing conditions (<1.5\"). We did not detect any low mass companions in this system. Our data present the most sensitive contrast limits around Vega at very small separations (2-15 au) thus far, allowing us to place new constraints on the companions which may be sculpting the Vega system. In addition to new constraints, as the deepest data obtained with P1640, these observations form the final legacy of the now decommissioned instrument.

WIRC+Pol is a newly commissioned low-resolution (R~100), near-infrared (J and H band) spectropolarimetry mode of the Wide-field InfraRed Camera (WIRC) on the 200-inch Hale Telescope at Palomar Observatory. The instrument utilizes a novel polarimeter design based on a quarter-wave plate and a polarization grating (PG), which provides full linear polarization measurements (Stokes I, Q, and U) in one exposure. The PG also has high transmission across the J and H bands. The instrument is situated at the prime focus of an equatorially mounted telescope. As a result, the system only has one reflection in the light path, providing minimal telescope induced polarization. A data reduction pipeline has been developed for WIRC+Pol to produce linear polarization measurements from observations. WIRC+Pol has been on-sky since February 2017. Results from the first year commissioning data show that the instrument has a high dispersion efficiency as expected from the polarization grating. We demonstrate the polarimetric stability of the instrument with RMS variation at 0.2% level over 30 minutes for a bright standard star (J = 8.7). While the spectral extraction is photon noise limited, polarization calibration between sources remain limited by systematics, likely related to gravity dependent pointing effects. We discuss instrumental systematics we have uncovered in the data, their potential causes, along with calibrations that are necessary to eliminate them. We describe a modulator upgrade that will eliminate the slowly varying systematics and provide polarimetric accuracy better than 0.1%.

We present ground-based infrared transit observations for four dynamically interacting \\textit{Kepler} planets, including Kepler-29b, Kepler-36c, KOI-1783.01, and Kepler-177c, obtained using the Wide-field Infrared Camera on the Hale 200\" telescope at Palomar Observatory. By utilizing an engineered diffuser and custom guiding software, we mitigate time-correlated telluric and instrumental noise sources in these observations. We achieve an infrared photometric precision comparable to or better than that of space-based observatories such as the \\textit{Spitzer Space Telescope}, and detect transits with greater than 3\\(\\sigma\\) significance for all planets. For Kepler-177c (\\(J=13.9\\)) our measurement uncertainties are only \\(1.2\\times\\) the photon noise limit and 1.9 times better than the predicted photometric precision for \\textit{Spitzer} IRAC photometry of this same target. We find that a single transit observation obtained \\(4-5\\) years after the end of the original \\textit{Kepler} mission can reduce dynamical mass uncertainties by as much as a factor of three for these systems. Additionally, we combine our new observations of KOI-1783.01 with information from the literature to confirm the planetary nature of this system. We discuss the implications of our new mass and radius constraints in the context of known exoplanets with low incident fluxes, and we note that Kepler-177c may be a more massive analog to the currently known super-puffs given its core mass (3.8\\(\\pm0.9M_\\Earth\\)) and large gas-to-core ratio (2.8\\(\\pm0.7\\)). Our demonstrated infrared photometric performance opens up new avenues for ground-based observations of transiting exoplanets previously thought to be restricted to space-based investigation.

HD 177830 is an evolved K0IV star with two known exoplanets. In addition to the planetary companions it has a late-type stellar companion discovered with adaptive optics imagery. We observed the binary star system with the PHARO near-IR camera and the Project 1640 coronagraph. Using the Project 1640 coronagraph and integral field spectrograph we extracted a spectrum of the stellar companion. This allowed us to determine that the spectral type of the stellar companion is a M4\\(\\pm\\)1V. We used both instruments to measure the astrometry of the binary system. Combining these data with published data, we determined that the binary star has a likely period of approximately 800 years with a semi-major axis of 100-200 AU. This implies that the stellar companion has had little or no impact on the dynamics of the exoplanets. The astrometry of the system should continue to be monitored, but due to the slow nature of the system, observations can be made once every 5-10 years.

We present infrared (IR) photometry and spectroscopy of the Type II-P SN 2017eaw and its progenitor in the nearby galaxy NGC 6946. Progenitor observations in the Ks band in 4 epochs from 1 year to 1 day before the explosion reveal no significant variability in the progenitor star greater than 6% that last longer than 200 days. SN 2017eaw is a typical SN II-P with near-IR and mid-IR photometric evolution similar to those of SNe 2002hh and 2004et, other normal SNe II-P in the same galaxy. Spectroscopic monitoring between 389 and 480 days post explosion reveals strong CO first overtone emission at 389 d, with a line profile matching that of SN 1987A from the same epoch, indicating \\( 10^-3 \\, M_\\) of CO at 1,800 K. From the 389 d epoch until the most recent observation at 566 d, the first overtone feature fades while the 4.5 \\(\\)m excess, likely from the CO fundamental band, remains. This behavior indicates that the CO has not been destroyed, but that the gas has cooled enough that the levels responsible for first overtone emissions are no longer populated. Finally, the evolution of Spitzer 3.6 \\(\\)m photometry shows evidence for dust formation in SN 2017eaw, with a dust mass of \\(10^-6\\) or \\(10^-4\\,M_\\) assuming carbonaceous or silicate grains respectively.

HD 19467 B is presently the only directly imaged T dwarf companion known to induce a measurable Doppler acceleration around a solar type star. We present spectroscopy measurements of this important benchmark object taken with the Project 1640 integral field unit at Palomar Observatory. Our high-contrast R~30 observations obtained simultaneously across the \\(JH\\) bands confirm the cold nature of the companion as reported from the discovery article and determine its spectral type for the first time. Fitting the measured spectral energy distribution to SpeX/IRTF T dwarf standards and synthetic spectra from BT-Settl atmospheric models, we find that HD 19467 B is a T5.5+/-1 dwarf with effective temperature Teff=\\(978^{+20}_{-43}\\) K. Our observations reveal significant methane absorption affirming its substellar nature. HD 19467 B shows promise to become the first T dwarf that simultaneously reveals its mass, age, and metallicity independent from the spectrum of light that it emits.