P. Hickson, A TECHNIQUE FOR PHOTOMETRIC DETECTION AND MEASUREMENT OF UNRESOLVED BINARY-SYSTEMS, Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific, 110(744), 1998, pp. 186-192
Citations number
5
Categorie Soggetti
Astronomy & Astrophysics
Journal title
Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific
A technique is described for the detection and measurement of close bi
nary systems whose images are unresolved. The method is based on analy
sis of the moment-of-inertia tensor of the image, from which the produ
ct of the binary flux ratio and square of the angular separation may b
e determined, Intrinsic asymmetries of the point-spread function are r
emoved by comparison with the image of a reference star. Multiple expo
sures may be used to increase the signal-to-noise ratio without need o
f image alignment. An example is given of a simulated measurement of t
he dwarf carbon star system G77-61.