Speckle interferometry of new and problem Hipparcos binaries

The ESA Hipparcos satellite made measurements of over 12,000 double stars a nd discovered 3406 new systems. In addition to these, 4706 entries in the H ipparcos Catalogue correspond to double star solutions that did not provide the classical parameters of separation and position angle (rho, theta) but were the so-called problem stars, flagged "G," "O," "V," or "X" (field H59 of the main catalog). An additional subset of 6981 entries were treated as single objects but classified by Hipparcos as "suspected nonsingle" (flag "S" in held H61), thus yielding a total of 11,687 "problem stars." Of the m any ground-based techniques for the study of double stars, probably the one with the greatest potential for exploration of these new and problem Hippa rcos binaries is speckle interferometry. Results are presented from an insp ection of 848 new and problem Hipparcos binaries, using both archival and n ew speckle observations obtained with the USNO and CHARA speckle cameras.