Observations of Double Stars from the Venezuelan National Astronomical Observatory

Abstract

The Venezuelan National Astronomical Observatory was dedicated in 1975. Located in Los Andes at 8° 47′ north and at an elevation of 3600 mt., almost the entire sky is visible in one year. At present three telescopes are in working order: the 1-mt. f/3 Schmidt telescope, the 1-mt. f/21 Coude Reflector and the Zeiss 0.65-mt. f/16 Refractor. Short spells of double star observations have been carried out since the creation of the Centro de Investigaciones de Astronomia CIDA to date, using the Zeiss 0.65-mt. Refractor. Early measurements were reported by MacConnell (1978, 1984) and Valbousquet (1980). Since 1993, CIDA joined the project “Determinacion de Medidas Astrometricas y Parametros Astrofisicos de Interes de Estrellas Dobles y Multiples”. This is a comprehensive project headed by the “Ramon Ma. Aller” Astronomical Observatory of Santiago de Compostela University, involving also Madrid, Nice and CIDA Observatories. The latter is especially suited for observations of southern double stars. The use of CCD at the 1-mt. CIDA Reflector significantly increased the number of astrometrically observed binaries. At the same time, several methods were developed to reduce CCD frames of double stars (Abad and Delia Prugna, 1995). In this poster, we show the telescopes and some graphical examples of the astrometric methods employed.