Kitt Peak Speckle Interferometry of Close

Visual Binary Stars Presentation by: Rikita Patel

Mentors: Dr. Genett and Dr. Kenney

About the research… Kitt Peak National Observatory October 2013 For two weekends Two different runs

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

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

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.

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

Hypothesis Can this method be used to measure and

characterize binary stars? Speckle interferometry is an effective method

to measure and characterize binary stars

Observations Preparations started over a year prior Two weekend runs Three primary positions for observation

Telescope Operator (TO) Camera Operator (CO) Run Master (RM)

What Types of StarsFive 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

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

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

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

Future Work Keck foundation Grant writing Building observatory More research at KPNO and Mt. Wilson

observatory

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!

Special Thanks Medical University Of the Americas