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The planet orbiting τ Boo at a separation of 0.046 AU could produce a reflected light flux as bright as 1 × 10 −4 relative to that of the star. A spectrum of the system will contain a reflected light component which varies in amplitude and Doppler-shift as the planet orbits the star. Assuming the secondary spectrum is primarily the reflected stellar spectrum, we can limit the relative reflected light flux to be less than 5 × 10 −5 . This implies an upper limit of 0.3 for the planetary geometric albedo near 480 nm, assuming a planetary radius of 1.2 R Jup . This albedo is significantly less than that of any of the giant planets of the solar system, and is not consistent with certain published theoretical predictions.

During the last two decades, optical stellar interferometry has become an important tool in astronomical investigations requiring spatial resolution well beyond that of traditional telescopes. This book, first published in 2006, was the first to be written on the subject. The authors provide an extended introduction discussing basic physical and atmospheric optics, which establishes the framework necessary to present the ideas and practice of interferometry as applied to the astronomical scene. They follow with an overview of historical, operational and planned interferometric observatories, and a selection of important astrophysical discoveries made with them. Finally, they present some as-yet untested ideas for instruments both on the ground and in space which may allow us to image details of planetary systems beyond our own.

Magnetic elements on the quiet Sun are buffeted by convective flows that cause lateral motions on timescales of minutes. The magnetic elements can be observed as bright points (BPs) in the G band at 4305 Å . We present observations of BPs based on a long sequence of G-band images recorded with the Dutch Open Telescope and postprocessed using speckle-masking techniques. From these images we measured the proper motions of isolated BPs and derived the autocorrelation function of their velocity relative to the solar granulation pattern. The accuracy of BP position measurements is estimated to be less than 23 km on the Sun. The rms velocity of BPs (corrected for measurement errors) is about 0.89 km s À1 , and the correlation time of BP motions is about 60 s. This rms velocity is about 3 times the velocity measured using cork tracking, almost certainly due to the fact that isolated BPs move more rapidly than clusters of BPs. We also searched for evidence of vorticity in the motions of G-band BPs.

The mission of NASA's Terrestrial Planet Finder (TPF) is to find Earth-like planets orbiting other stars and characterize the atmospheres of these planets using spectroscopy. Because of the enormous brightness ratio between the star and the reflected light from the planet, techniques must be found to reduce the brightness of the star. The current favorite approach to doing this is with interferometry: interfering the light from two or more separated telescopes with a $\pi$ phase shift, nulling out the starlight. While this technique can, in principle, achieve the required dynamic range, building a space interferometer that has the necessary characteristics poses immense technical difficulties. In this paper, we suggest a much simpler approach to achieving the required dynamic range. By simply adjusting the transmissive shape of a telescope aperture, the intensity in large regions around the stellar image can be reduced nearly to zero. This approach could lead to construction of a TPF using conventional technologies, requiring space optics on a much smaller scale than the current TPF approach.Comment: Accepted for publication in ApJ Letters, 9 pages, 6 figure