The Planetary System around HR8799 Has Been Imaged with the AO System on the MMT
Using the adaptive optics system on the MMT, Professor Phil Hinz has directly imaged the planetary system around the star HR 8799 at a wavelenth of 3.8 µm.
At a distance of 39 parsecs HR 8799 is a nearby star in the constellation Pegasus. HR 8799 has been a star of interest for some time. As a member of the Lambda Bootes class of stars, the spectrum of HR 8799 is depleted in iron peak elements. More recently, it has been found to have an infrared excess at long wavelengths, indicating the presence of a debris disk. The widely accepted model of debris disk formation attributes them to collisions between asteroid or planet size objects orbiting the parent stars.
On November 13, 2008, Christian Marois of the Herzberg Institute of Astrophysics and colleagues announced the discovery of a planetary system around HR 8799. Using observations taken at the Keck and Gemini observatories, they observed three massive planets orbiting HR 8799. Those observations used the adaptive optics systems to resolve the system.
The images taken by Phil Hinz were taken with the adaptive optics system on the MMT on November 28, 2008. On this image, the central one arc sec diameter of the parent star image has been digitally subtracted to minimize scattered light. The planets, labeled "b", "c", and "d", have masses of ~7, ~10, and ~10 Jupiter masses, respectively, and range in distance from ~68 to ~24 Astronomical Units from the star.