NaCo/SAM observations of sources at the Galactic Center
2012
Sparse aperture masking (SAM) interferometry combined with
Adaptive Optics(AO) is a technique that is uniquely suited to investigate structures near the diffraction limit of large telescopes. The strengths of the technique are a robust calibration of the
Point Spread Function(PSF) while maintaining a relatively
high dynamic range. We used SAM+AO observations to investigate the circumstellar environment of several bright sources with
infrared excessin the central
parsecof the Galaxy. For our observations, unstable atmospheric conditions as well as significant residuals after the
background subtractionpresented serious problems for the
standard approachof calibrating SAM data via interspersed observations of reference stars. We circumvented these difficulties by constructing a synthesized calibrator directly from sources within the field-of-view. When observing crowded fields, this novel method can boost the efficiency of SAM observations because it renders interspersed calibrator observations unnecessary. Here, we presented the first NaCo/SAM images reconstructed using this method.
Keywords:
-
Correction
-
Source
-
Cite
-
Save
19
References
2
Citations
NaN
KQI