Szymon Gladysz (National University of Ireland, Galway), Julian Christou (National Science Foundation), Matthew Kenworthy (Steward Observatory), Nicholas Law (Caltech Optical Observatories, California Institute of Technology), Richard Dekany (Caltech Optical Observatories, California Institute of Technology)
Keywords: Astronomy
Abstract:
We propose a complete framework for detection, differential astrometry and photometry of faint companions, e.g. planets orbiting stars other than the Sun. The algorithms exploit the difference in statistics between the on-axis and off-axis intensity and in principle do not require the signal to be above the noise level. To test the accuracy of the proposed methods we used adaptive-optics short-exposure data from three observing campaigns: I-band observations with the 5m telescope at the Palomar Observatory, K-band data from the Lick Observatory’s 3m telescope, and M-band images from the MMT Observatory’s 6.5m telescope. We show that our algorithms outperform the classic procedures of PSF-subtraction for detection and PSF-fitting for photometry. All three proposed techniques are self-calibrating, i.e. they do not require observation of a calibration star after the science target thus improving the observing efficiency.
Date of Conference: September 16-19, 2008
Track: Astronomy