Most current work is devoted to pushing the limits of deep circumstellar imaging.
We want to look into the bright circumstellar halo that surrounds any bright source in order top detect faint objects or features associated with the star. This includes substellar companions, planets, protoplanetary disks etc. To do this we need to use a variety of tools including instrumentation, image processing, perhaps even the design of the whole telescope system. The instrument which has, so far, been most useful in circumstellar imaging is the Stellar coronagraph. This instrument, invented by Bernard Lyot in 1934 to look at the solar corona, uses a clever arrangement of light blocking strategies and reimaging in order to reduce the stellar halo.