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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 October 2004
We describe in this short note the interest of a multiple-stageprolate apodized Lyot coronagraph (PALC). The principle wasproposed by Aime, Soummer and Ferrari (A&A 2002, 389,334-344).Several PALCs are used in a cascading mode. The first stage is aPALC with all its elements. The other stages use only Lyot masksand Lyot stops, without any further aperture apodization. If theextinction factor of the first PALC is Q, then the resultingextinction factor of N such cascading coronagraphs is QN.The total throughput remains that of the first PALC, for perfectoptics.