Feb S&T article on interferometry to determine planet shapes

Seems like about 30 years ago, I remember an article about a speckle
interferometry project in Sky & Tel that supposedly showed actual spots
on Betelguese. I'm wondering what the big brag is for only
illustrating the shape of a star today (Regulus for e.g.) if they were
capable of imaging a star surface years ago?

Rich wrote:
Seems like about 30 years ago, I remember an article about a speckle
interferometry project in Sky & Tel that supposedly showed actual spots
on Betelguese. I'm wondering what the big brag is for only
illustrating the shape of a star today (Regulus for e.g.) if they were
capable of imaging a star surface years ago?

Rich wrote:

Rich wrote:
Seems like about 30 years ago, I remember an article about a speckle
interferometry project in Sky & Tel that supposedly showed actual spots
on Betelguese. I'm wondering what the big brag is for only
illustrating the shape of a star today (Regulus for e.g.) if they were
capable of imaging a star surface years ago?

HST was also capable of imaging Betelgeuse (and, even more impressive,
measurnig differentia Doppler shifts from its rotation from side to
side - the bright spot is around the north ple). The big deal is that
there were only a literal handful of stars (actually, only Betelgeuse and
R Doradus come to mind immediately) for which either speckle or
HST could see structure on the disk. For a few other stars, speckle
data could give an effective diameter. What's new is that they
can now go to stars with more than a factor of 10 smaller apparent
size, with enough preccision for not only diameyter but shape measurements.
Betelgeuse has a diameter (depending on wavelength) of around 0.05".
Regulus is something like 0.0016".

(For that matter, we've been able to image the surface of one star
in considerable detail for many years...)

Bill Keel

On 18 Jan 2007 14:57:42 -0800, Rich wrote:

Seems like about 30 years ago, I remember an article about a speckle
interferometry project in Sky & Tel that supposedly showed actual spots
on Betelguese. I'm wondering what the big brag is for only
illustrating the shape of a star today (Regulus for e.g.) if they were
capable of imaging a star surface years ago?

The author of the article on speckle interferometry you refer to in S&T in
the 1970s is also the principal investigator of the CHARA Array on Mt.
Wilson that's described in the current issue of S&T. I can guarantee you
he didn't raise millions to build the CHARA Array just so he could
duplicate the work he did decades ago. The work described in the current
article is new and groundbreaking.

Interestingly, much of the speckle interferometry described in the 1970s
article was done on the Hooker 100" telescope on Mt. Wilson, which is
located right next to the CHARA Array. The 100" was where astronomical
interferometry research was first done (Michelson did some testing at Lick
Observatory first). The full-page photo in the current article showing
them both is not the closest point between the two but was the best vantage
point to get both a CHARA scope and the 100" in the photo (I know -- I took
the photo, and I spent a lot of time trapsing around the mountain trying
different angles). The CHARA beam-combining facility is just a few meters
from the 100" dome. In one early design there were light tubes passing
*through* the 100" dome but fortunately that turned out to be unecessary
and it now passes harmlessly by about 5 meters from the 100" dome's outer
wall.

Mike Simmons

"Mike Simmons" wrote

The author of the article on speckle interferometry you refer to in S&T in
the 1970s is also the principal investigator of the CHARA Array on Mt.
Wilson that's described in the current issue of S&T.

Nice photos of the array in there. Finally an outfit like CHARA gets a
photographer with "professional" skills!

;-)

On Fri, 19 Jan 2007 09:04:21 -0700, Howard Lester wrote:

"Mike Simmons" wrote

The author of the article on speckle interferometry you refer to in S&T in
the 1970s is also the principal investigator of the CHARA Array on Mt.
Wilson that's described in the current issue of S&T.

Nice photos of the array in there. Finally an outfit like CHARA gets a
photographer with "professional" skills!

;-)

HA! "Professional" indeed. Have you seen the sunset picture of the MMTO
on their web site? Now THAT'S a professional shot. :-)

Thanks Howard.

Mike Simmons

"Mike Simmons" wrote

Nice photos of the array in there. Finally an outfit like CHARA gets a
photographer with "professional" skills!

;-)

HA! "Professional" indeed. Have you seen the sunset picture of the MMTO
on their web site? Now THAT'S a professional shot. :-)

Thanks Howard.

Mike Simmons

Thank you, Mike, and you're welcome! You even take good photos of goofy
looking guys holding mirror-casting refractory materials. ;-)

On Fri, 19 Jan 2007 11:47:54 -0700, Howard Lester wrote:

Thank you, Mike, and you're welcome! You even take good photos of goofy
looking guys holding mirror-casting refractory materials. ;-)

Some subjects are too good to mess up. Watch yourself or I'll post
something like that for all of SAA to see.

Mike Simmons

Rich wrote:

Seems like about 30 years ago, I remember an article about a speckle
interferometry project in Sky & Tel that supposedly showed actual spots
on Betelguese. I'm wondering what the big brag is for only
illustrating the shape of a star today (Regulus for e.g.) if they were
capable of imaging a star surface years ago?

Very likely you have missunderstood the article, in your zeal
to missunderstand and confuse and lie to yourself and everyone?
.. . .

Frog Crossing wrote:

Rich wrote:

Seems like about 30 years ago, I remember an article about a speckle
interferometry project in Sky & Tel that supposedly showed actual spots
on Betelguese. I'm wondering what the big brag is for only
illustrating the shape of a star today (Regulus for e.g.) if they were
capable of imaging a star surface years ago?

Very likely you have missunderstood the article, in your zeal
to missunderstand and confuse and lie to yourself and everyone?
. . .

Tut, tut...
see:
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap990605.html
and:
http://www.aavso.org/vstar/vsots/1200.shtml
and:
http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1982A&A...115..253B
and:
http://www.obs-hp.fr/~dejonghe/page3.htm
Hm.. Why dont you both use google instead of calling
each other names? You might learn something.