2. About the research…
Kitt Peak National Observatory
October 2013
For two weekends
Two different runs
3. Introduction
What are binary stars?
Who started this research
Methods of observing binary stars (Double stars)
Such as “manual” eye piece spectroscopic binaries,
eclipsing binaries, and astrometric binaries, etc.
What is speckle interferometry
Typical speckle observation consists of 1000 images
Each 20 milliseconds
4. Speckle interferometry
Cont.
Speckle interferometry observations limits are set
by telescope resolution
Smaller telescopes are used to concentrate on
wider binaries
Smaller ones are better, so we can see different
distance range binary stars
5. Instruments Used
2.1 m telescope was used
Located at south end of KPNO
1.6 and 0.8 m were evaluated as well
The construction for this began in 1959
The speckle camera
Magnification of 8X
Very light weight
Provided an overall effective focal length of about
129,6000 mm.
6. More about Speckle
Camera
Very fast compared to normal camera
Think about what happens when you try to take
picture of moon or stars with your phone or camera
Also takes better pictures that are more clear
7. Hypothesis
Can this method be used to measure and
characterize binary stars?
Speckle interferometry is an effective method to
measure and characterize binary stars
8. Observations
Preparations started over a year prior
Two weekend runs
Three primary positions for observation
Telescope Operator (TO)
Camera Operator (CO)
Run Master (RM)
9. What Types of Stars
Five different classes of double stars we focused on:
Known binaries with published orbits
Candidate “binaries” without published orbits
Unclassified double stars
Unconfirmed double stars (not ever sure about
them being double stars)
Special request by other astronomers
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14. Reduction of Data
PS3 – used for reduction of Data
General purpose program
Automatically extracts the best stars from the
observation
It can also align and combine the images so we can
compare and contrast more accurately
Processing can take hours
Once started it can run unattended
15. Results
Wanted to make sure that we follow that particular
orbit
Our results indicate that we are on the right “path”
Distance mattered a lot
Closer stars were better to observe and to work with
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19. Conclusion
Our portable speckle system with special speckle
camera observed close binaries on a 2.1 m
telescope
The closest separation was 0.1 arc seconds
Not very clearly seen
We found out that using nearby and fairly bright
single stars (for deconvolution) provided much
better results than without a reference star
The new program PS3 made the data reduction
process much faster
20. Future Work
Keck foundation
Grant writing
Building observatory
More research at KPNO and Mt. Wilson observatory
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23. Acknowledgements
William Hartkopf and Brian Mason (shaping in
observing programs)
Richard Joyce and Di Harmer (provided extensive
technical advice on use of 2.1m telescope)
Hillary Mathis, Brent Hansey, Dave Summers, Daryl
Willmarth, Ballina Cancio, Lori Allen, Mark
Giampapa, Ronald Oliversen (NASA Goddard
Space Flight Center), Olga Kiyaeva, Joseph Carro,
Dr. Russ Genet, Dr. John W. Kenney III, Kitt Peak
National Observatory and the team!
Binary stars are two stars that are held by mutual gravitational force (basically they revolve around each other).
This term was given by William Herschel when he discovered some of the double stars. So basically he is the one who started the research. The term “Visual” was added later.
There are different methods to observe binary stars. I have done two separate researches on binary stars observation. One is using eye piece (which is manual and it was done at mount Wilson observetory in CA) and one using speckle interferometry which was done at Kitt Peak National Observatory in AZ). And today I will be talking about Speckle interferometry.
Speckle interferometry is a method used to overcome normal seeing limitations by taking many very short exposures at high magnification and analyzing the resulting speckles to obtain the position angle and separation of close binary stars.
Regular CCD cameras take about a second to read out single image where as with speckle cameras are capable of making 10 millisecond exposure
Why its an affective method? (it takes away the unnecessary light projection from surroundings)
SIF is efficient methods to measure lots of stars in short amount of time.
The three team members were able to work closely together in a highly coordinated manner
The stars were targeted every 4 to 5 mins (leaving some interval to have steady method and to find better targets)
RM chose the next object to observe from the target list (target list from the excel sheet)
TO located the target (from the sky)
CO finished the integration on the previous target
That is how all the stars were observed
Some nights were cloudy, but we got there when night were clear.
