Speckle Interferometry with Small Telescopes

Portable Speckle Interferometry Camera System

“…As the intensifier's photocathode is insensitive at longer wavelengths, observations are made at visual wavelengths where atmospheric dispersion is sizeable, hence the need for an atmospheric dispersion corrector. Keeping track of binaries with small angular separations required observations on larger telescopes, so a second, essentially identical camera was built and has been employed in a highly successful "off campus" observational program (Mason et al, 1999).…”

“…Due to their small separations, they have, of necessity, been primarily observed with speckle cameras on larger telescopes. This is not to suggest, however, that smaller telescopes or observational techniques besides speckle interferometry no longer play a vital role in double star research -quite the contrary (Mason & Hartkopf, 2003). A division of labor has arisen between larger and smaller telescopes; the larger telescopes concentrate on binaries with smaller separations while smaller telescopes observe the wider pairs.…”