Review of Interferometric Measurements and Prospects: Speckle

Harold A. McAlister (Georgia State University)

Abstract:

Speckle interferometry, invented by Antoine Labeyrie in 1970, provides diffraction limited resolution at single aperture telescopes with relatively modest observational and reduction/analysis techniques. Speckle methods possess both high accuracy and high resolution in comparison with classical techniques and have replaced visual micrometry as the preferred method for observing such systems. The author's program of binary star speckle interferometry started at Kitt Peak in 1975 and was carried out by CHARA astronomers at Georgia State University from 1977 until 1999 when the program was transferred to the U.S. Naval Observatory. This presentation will attempt to explain the technique, give examples of its application and summarize the accomplishments of speckle interferometry applied to binary stars.

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References:

• Binary Star Speckle Interferometry
  H.A. McAlister
  Sky and Telescope 53, 346, (1977).

• Development of a Dual Microchannel Plate Intensified CCD Speckle Camera
  H.A. McAlister, W.G. Robinson, and S.L. Marcus
  Proc. SPIE 331, 113, (1982).

• Calibration of Interferometrically Determined Properties of Binary Stars
  H.A. McAlister
  Proc. IAU Symposium 111
  Calibration of Fundamental Stellar Quantities
  ed. D.S. Hayes et al., D. Reidel, pub. p 97, (1985).

• ICCD Speckle Observations of Binary Stars I. A Survey for Duplicity Among the Bright Stars
  H.A. McAlister, W.I. Hartkopf, D.J. Hutter, M. Shara, and O.G. Franz
  Astron. J. 93, 183, (1987).

• Seeing Stars with Speckle Interferometry
  H.A. McAlister
  American Scientist, March-April, p. 166, (1988).

• Binary Star orbits from Speckle Interferometry. II. Combined Visual/ Speckle Orbits of 28 Close Systems
  W.I. Hartkopf, H.A. McAlister, and O.G. Franz
  Astron. J., 98, 1014, (1989).

• Twenty Years of Seeing Double
  H.A. McAlister
  Sky and Telescope, 92, No. 5, p. 28 (November 1996).