On Sunday, December 17, 2017 at 4:26:54 AM UTC-7, David Spain wrote:

Kepler uses dip in light curves of stars to determine the existence of
exo-planets, but that presumption is that these "exo" solar systems have
their ecliptics aligned with us so that transits are observable, but
there must be far more systems that do not fit that criterion than do.

So are there any telescopes in the works that can not only detect
reflected light from exo-planets but can use light arcs around their
home stars to detect them?

Just curious.

Several exoplanets have been discovered by other means, the latest being
one orbiting Proxima Centauri:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proxim...anetary_system

[[Mod. note -- To answer answer to the poster's original question:

No current telescope can directly resolve the "light arc" produced when
an extrasolar planet acts as a gravitational lens for a background star.
But this phenomenon also *brightens* the background star, and this
brightening is detectable. A number of extrasolar planets have in fact
been discovered via this "microlensing" technique:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravit...olar _planets
-- jt]]