Kitt Peak Speckle Interferometry of Close Visual Binary Stars (Abstract)
Volume 42 number 2 (2014)
- Russell Genet
- California Polytechnic State University, Cuesta College, and the University of North Dakota, 4995 Santa Margarita Lake Road, Santa Margarita, CA 93453; russmgenet@aol.com
- David Rowe
- PlaneWave Instruments; drowesmi@aol.com
- Thomas C. Smith
- Darkridge Observatory; tcsmith@darkridgeobservatory.org
- Alex Teiche
- California Polytechnic State University; alexteiche@gmail.com
- Richard Harshaw
- Brilliant Sky Observatory; rharshaw2@cox.net
- Daniel Wallace
- University of North Dakota; dwallace006@yahoo.com
- Eric Weise
- University of California; ericdweise@gmail.com
- Edward Wiley
- Yankee Tank Creek Observatory; edwiley@sunflower.com
- Grady Boyce
- Boyce Research Initiatives and Educational Foundation; grady@boyce-astro.org
- Patrick Boyce
- Boyce Research Initiatives and Educational Foundation; pat@boyce-astro.org
- Detrick Branston
- National Solar Observatory; dbranston@noao.edu
- Kayla Chaney
- Concordia University; kayla.chaney@eagles.cui.edu
- R. Kent Clark
- South Alabama University; rclark@jaguarl.usouthal.edu
- Chris Estrada
- California State University; prlest0112@hotmail.com
- Reed Estrada
- Northrop Aviation; reed.estrada@roadrunner.com
- Thomas Frey
- California Polytechnic State University; t.frey@sbcglobal.net
- Wayne L. Green
- Boulder Astronomy and Space Society; dxwayne@gmail.com
- Nathalie Haurberg
- Knox College; nhaurber@knox.edu
- Greg Jones
- Eclipse Technologies; gregj@eclipse-t.com
- John Kenney
- Concordia University; john.kenney@cui.edu
- Sheri Loftin
- Kitt Peak National Observatory; loftin@noao.edu
- Izak McGieson
- Knox College; izak@halcyon.nu
- Rikita Patel
- Concordia University; rikitaben.patel@eagles.cui.edu
- Josh Plummer
- University of South Alabama
- John Ridgely
- California Polytechnic State University; jridgely@caloly.edu
- Mark Trueblood
- Winer Observatory; winer.obs@gmail.com
- Don Westergren
- Morris Ranch Observatory; westergren@nethere.com
- Paul Wren
- University of North Dakota; paul.wren@gmal.com
Abstract
(Abstract only) Speckle interferometry can be used to overcome normal seeing limitations by taking many very short exposures at high magnification and analyzing the resulting speckles to obtain the position angles and separations of close binary stars. A typical speckle observation of a close binary consists of 1,000 images, each 20 milliseconds in duration. The images are stored as a multi-plane FITS cube. A portable speckle interferometry system that features an electron-multiplying CCD camera was used by the authors during two week-long observing runs on the 2.1-meter telescope at Kitt Peak National Observatory to obtain some 1,000 data cubes of close binaries selected from a dozen different research programs. Many hundreds of single reference stars were also observed and used in deconvolution to remove undesirable atmospheric and telescope optical effects. The database of well over one million images was reduced with the Speckle Interferometry Tool of platesolve3. A few sample results are provided. During the second Kitt Peak run, the McMath-Pierce 1.6- and 0.8-meter solar telescopes were evaluated for nighttime speckle interferometry, while the 0.8-meter Coude feed was used to obtain differential radial velocities of short arc binaries.