NASA ADS Astronomy Abstract Service

Title:
VINCI, the VLTI commissioning instrument: status after one year of operations at Paranal
Authors:
Kervella, Pierre; Gitton, Philippe B.; Segransan, Damien; di Folco, Emmanuel; Kern, Pierre Y.; Kiekebusch, Mario; Duc, Than Phan; Longinotti, Antonio; Coude du Foresto, Vincent; Ballester, Pascal; Sabet, Cyrus; Cotton, William D.; Schoeller, Markus; Wilhelm, Rainer
Affiliation:
AA(European Southern Observatory (Chile)), AB(European Southern Observatory (Chile)), AC(Observatoire de Geneve (Switzerland)), AD(European Southern Observatory (Germany)), AE(Lab. d'Astrophysique de l'Observatoire de Grenoble (France)), AF(European Southern Observatory (Chile)), AG(European Southern Observatory (Germany)), AH(European Southern Observatory (Germany)), AI(Observatoire de Paris-Meudon (France)), AJ(European Southern Observatory (Germany)), AK(European Southern Observatory (Germany)), AL(National Radio Astronomy Observatory (USA)), AM(European Southern Observatory (Chile)), AN(European Southern Observatory (Germany))
Journal:
Interferometry for Optical Astronomy II. Edited by Wesley A. Traub . Proceedings of the SPIE, Volume 4838, pp. 858-869 (2003). (SPIE Homepage)
Publication Date:
02/2003
Origin:
SPIE
Abstract Copyright:
(c) 2003: SPIE--The International Society for Optical Engineering. Downloading of the abstract is permitted for personal use only.
Bibliographic Code:
2003SPIE.4838..858K

Abstract

Installed at the heart of the Very Large Telescope Interferometer (VLTI), VINCI combines coherently the infrared light coming from two telescopes. The first fringes were obtained in March 2001 with the VLTI test siderostats, and in October of the same year with the 8 meters Unit Telescopes (UTs). After more than one year of operation, it is now possible to evaluate its behavior and performances with a relatively long timescale. During this period, the technical downtime has been kept to a very low level. The most important parameters of the instrument (interferometric efficiency, mechanical stability,...) have been followed regularly, leading to a good understanding of its performances and characteristics. In addition to a large number of laboratory measurements, more than 3000 on-sky observations have been recorded, giving a precise knowledge of the behavior of the system under various conditions. We report in this paper the main characteristics of the VINCI instrument hardware and software. The differences between observations with the siderostats and the UTs are also briefly discussed.