Issue |
A&A
Volume 424, Number 2, September III 2004
|
|
---|---|---|
Page(s) | 719 - 726 | |
Section | Astronomical instrumentation | |
DOI | https://doi.org/10.1051/0004-6361:20035849 | |
Published online | 23 August 2004 |
First observations with an H-band integrated optics beam combiner at the VLTI*
1
LAOG – Laboratoire d'Astrophysique UMR UJF-CNRS 5571, Observatoire de Grenoble, Université Joseph Fourier, BP 53, 38041 Grenoble Cedex 9, France e-mail: jean-baptiste.lebouquin@obs.ujf-grenoble.fr
2
ESO – European Southern Observatory, Casilla 19001, Santiago 19, Chile
3
IMEP – Institut de Microélectronique Electromagnétisme et Photonique, 38016 Grenoble Cedex 1, France
Received:
11
December
2003
Accepted:
29
March
2004
This paper reports results obtained with the Very Large Telescope
Interferometer Commissioning Instrument (VLTI-VINCI) where the fiber
interferometric coupler MONA was temporarily replaced by an integrated
optics beam combiner (IONIC).
The two-beam combiner operating in the H atmospheric band was
tested at Paranal during two
weeks in July 2002. Fringes were recorded
on several stars with the siderostats and the Unit Telescopes
(UT). We demonstrate that integrated optics allows beam
combination with a high interferometric efficiency, stability and spatial
filtering. The instrumental visibility of VLTI+IONIC is better than
85%, which is just 5% under the visibility of the
IONIC device alone.
During this run, the flux injection in the IONIC combiner was not
optimized since we used the K-band MONA optics. However, we obtain
fringes with the 35 cm siderostats on a star of magnitude
(
Scl).
It allows us to extrapolate a magnitude around
with 8 m telescopes without adaptive optics and in the same poor
injection conditions.
Key words: techniques: interferometric / methods: data analysis / instrumentation: interferometers
© ESO, 2004
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