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QWSSI, the Quad-camera Wavefront-Sensing Speckle Imager, is a next-generation speckle imager that is being developed for Lowell Observatory's 4.3-meter Discovery Channel Telescopes. The principle behind QWSSI is to extend the capabilities of the speckle camera currently resident at Lowell, the Differential Speckle Survey Instrument (DSSI), in two ways. First, while DSSI currently observes in two visible channels, QWSSI will simultaneously observe in six narrow-band channels: four in the visible (0.5-0.9um), and one each in J- and H-band (1.2 and 1.6um). Second, the visible light unused for speckle imaging is carefully preserved and feeds a wavefront sensor (WFS), which is also run simultaneously with the speckle imaging. Simulations by Löbb (2016) indicate WFS data will provide significant gains in exploring stellar multiplicity, with marked improvements in primary-secondary contrast ratios and inner working angle (Horch et al. 2018). QWSSI will also be mountable on one of the three 1-meter telescopes being installed on the NPOI Array for engineering tests and preliminary science observations. QWSSI will expand on the already considerable exoplanetary work of the speckle imagers DSSI, NESSI (@ WIYN), Alopeke (Gemini-N), and Zorro (Gemini-S), improving the discovery space for existing targets, as well opening up new regions of that discovery space with its NIR channels.

Conference Name: AAS/Division for Extreme Solar Systems Abstracts ADS Bibcode: 2019ESS.....433017V