Letter to the Editor

First AU-scale observations of V1647 Orionis with VLTI/MIDI

¹ Konkoly Observatory of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, PO Box 67, 1525 Budapest, Hungary e-mail: abraham@konkoly.hu
² Max-Planck-Institut für Astronomie, Königstuhl 17, 69117 Heidelberg, Germany

Received: 11 January 2006
Accepted: 10 February 2006

Abstract

The young eruptive star V1647 Ori was observed with MIDI, the mid-infrared interferometric instrument at the Very Large Telescope Interferometer (VLTI), on March 2, 2005. We present the first spectrally resolved interferometric visibility points for this object. Our results show that (1) the mid-infrared emitting region is extended, having a size of ≈7 AU at 10 μm; (2) no signatures of a close companion can be seen; (3) the m spectrum exhibits no obvious spectral features. Comparison with similar observations of Herbig Ae stars suggests that V1647 Ori probably possesses a disk of moderate flaring. A simple disk model with is able to fit both the spectral energy distribution and the observed visibility values simultaneously.