Abstract
Astronomical observations from the ground are limited in sensitivity – not so much in performance – by atmospheric turbulence. Removing the sensitivity limit by observing a reference star close to the object of interest, to freeze the turbulence and to permit long integration times, one is then restricted to a small field of less than 1 arcmin around the reference star.
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Notes
- 1.
Note that the time average is replaced by the ensemble average since the random process is ergodic as discussed in Sect. 4.2.
- 2.
Note that the linear increase of Δφ with\(\vec{R} =\vec{ B}/\lambda \) means that the atmospheric OPD,\(\Delta \varphi \frac{\lambda } {2\pi }\), is independent of wavelength, as discussed in Sect. 4.2.
- 3.
The dispersion also affects the shape of the Airy disk that is elongated when observing objects off-zenith. This is called transversal dispersion and is usually corrected by an atmospheric dispersion corrector.
- 4.
TheN-band is the atmospheric band at λ = 10. 2 ± 2. 5 μm, see Appendix A.2.
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© 2011 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
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Glindemann, A. (2011). Observing Through Atmospheric Turbulence. In: Principles of Stellar Interferometry. Astronomy and Astrophysics Library. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-15028-9_6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-15028-9_6
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