Measurements of visual binaries with EMCCD cameras and the Nice 76‐cm refractor in 2009–2010

Abstract

AbstractWe present relative astrometric and photometric measurements of visual binaries made in 2009–2010 with the 76‐cm refractor of Côte d'Azur Observatory and a pair of sensitive EMCCD ANDOR cameras. Our observing list includes optical pairs and binaries whose orbital motion is still uncertain. Three different techniques were used for obtaining measurements: Lucky Imaging, Speckle Interferometry, and the Direct Vector Autocorrelation method. From our 2,050 observations of double stars, we obtained 1,652 new measurements of the relative position of 1,792 objects, with angular separations in the range 0".1–14".1. The average accuracy is estimated at 0".02 for the angular separations and 0°.6 for the position angles. We managed to observe faint systems (mV ≈ 12) with a large magnitude difference (up to ΔmV ≈ 5). We have thus been able to measure many systems containing red dwarf stars that had been poorly monitored since their discovery. We also measured the difference of magnitude of the two components of 1,143 objects with an estimated error of 0.2 mag.