NEAR-INFRARED POLARIMETRY OF STAR-FORMATION REGIONS

We have adapted a linear polarimeter to the new infared camera (IRC2) of the University of Texas at Austin. One of the current projects usin g this new instrument is to obtain high angular resolution polarizatio n maps of selected galactic star formation regions (L1551/IRS 5, NGC 2 023, NGC 2024 and LkHalpha101). The first polarimetric measurements we re obtained in November of 1992 at the 2.7 m telescope of McDonald Obs ervatory, and the data reduction is still in progress. This paper prov ides a brief overview of both the polarimetric near-infrared camera an d the data reduction procedure, and also some preliminary results on t he polarimetric imaging of L1551/IRS 5.