Improving GRAVITY towards observations of faint targets

Felix Widmann; Frank Eisenhauer; Guy Perrin; Wolfgang Brandner; Christian Straubmeier; Karin Perraut; Antonio Amorim; Markus Schöller; Feng Gao; Reinhard Genzel; Stefan Gillessen; Martina Karl; Sylvestre Lacour; Magdalena Lippa; Thomas Ott; Oliver Pfuhl; Philipp Plewa; Idel Waisberg

doi:10.1117/12.2312118

9 July 2018 Improving GRAVITY towards observations of faint targets

Felix Widmann, Frank Eisenhauer, Guy Perrin, Wolfgang Brandner, Christian Straubmeier, Karin Perraut, Antonio Amorim, Markus Schöller, Feng Gao, Reinhard Genzel, Stefan Gillessen, Martina Karl, Sylvestre Lacour, Magdalena Lippa, Thomas Ott, Oliver Pfuhl, Philipp Plewa, Idel Waisberg

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Proceedings Volume 10701, Optical and Infrared Interferometry and Imaging VI; 107010K (2018) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2312118
Event: SPIE Astronomical Telescopes + Instrumentation, 2018, Austin, Texas, United States

Abstract

Since its first light at the Very Large Telescope Interferometer (VLTI), GRAVITY has reached new regimes in optical interferometry, in terms of accuracy as well as sensitivity.¹ GRAVITY is routinely doing phase referenced interferometry of objects fainter than K > 17 mag, which makes for example the galactic center black hole Sagittarius A*² detectable 90 % of the times. However from SNR calculations we are confident that even a sensitivity limit of K ~ 19 mag is possible. We therefore try to push the limits of GRAVITY by improving the observations as well as the calibration and the data reduction. This has further improved the sensitivity limit to K > 18 mag in the beginning of this year. Here we present some work we are currently doing in order to reach the best possible sensitivity.

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Felix Widmann, Frank Eisenhauer, Guy Perrin, Wolfgang Brandner, Christian Straubmeier, Karin Perraut, Antonio Amorim, Markus Schöller, Feng Gao, Reinhard Genzel, Stefan Gillessen, Martina Karl, Sylvestre Lacour, Magdalena Lippa, Thomas Ott, Oliver Pfuhl, Philipp Plewa, and Idel Waisberg "Improving GRAVITY towards observations of faint targets", Proc. SPIE 10701, Optical and Infrared Interferometry and Imaging VI, 107010K (9 July 2018); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2312118

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