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We report the confirmation of HIP 67506 C, a new stellar companion to HIP 67506 A. We previously reported a candidate signal at 2λ/D (240 mas) in L ′ in MagAO/Clio imaging using the binary differential imaging technique. Several additional indirect signals showed that the candidate signal merited follow-up: significant astrometric acceleration in Gaia DR3, Hipparcos–Gaia proper motion anomaly, and overluminosity compared to single main-sequence stars. We confirmed the companion, HIP 67506 C, at 0.1 arcsec with MagAO-X in 2022 April. We characterized HIP 67506 C MagAO-X photometry and astrometry, and estimated spectral-type K7-M2; we also re-evaluated HIP 67506 A in light of the close companion. Additionally, we show that a previously identified 9 arcsec companion, HIP 67506 B, is a much further distant unassociated background star. We also discuss the utility of indirect signposts in identifying small inner working angle candidate companions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

MagAO is the newly-commissioned adaptive optics (AO) instrument on the Magellan Clay telescope at Las Companas Observatory, Chile. MagAO has two co-mounted science cameras: VisAO for visible-light direct and spectral-differential imaging; and Clio for near to thermal IR direct imaging, non-redundant-mask interference, and prism spectroscopy. We demonstrate MagAO's simultaneous visible and infrared AO performance via direct images of exoplanet Beta Pictoris b. The planet was detected in 5 passbands from 0.9–5μm. Here we show the infrared images; the visible observations are presented in Males et al. 2013. MagAO is the first AO system to offer good performance with extensive coverage across the O/IR spectrum and thus offers an unprecedented opportunity to study the spectral energy distributions of directly-imaged extrasolar planetary atmospheres. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The Magellan Adaptive Optics (MagAO) system saw first light in November 2012 at Las Campanas Observatory (LCO) on the 6.5m Clay telescope. Here we present an introduction to MagAO's visible wavelength diffraction limited imager, VisAO. VisAO delivers Strehl ratios greater than 30% from 0.62 microns (r') through 1 micron, where Strehl is even higher, and achieved resolutions as small as 20 milli-arcseconds. We took advantage of the excellent performance of MagAO/VisAO to conduct high contrast observations of an exoplanet in the optical. With VisAO, we are, for the first time, able to begin characterizing exoplanet atmospheres in the optical from the ground. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]