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Status of PRIMA for the VLTI: heading to astrometry

2012; SPIE; Volume: 8445; Linguagem: Inglês

10.1117/12.926426

1996-756X

C. Schmid, R. Abuter, A. Mérand, J. Sahlmann, Jaime Alonso, Luigi Andolfato, Gerald van Belle, F. Delplancke, F. Dérie, Nicola Di Lieto, R. Frahm, P. Gitton, Nuno Gomes, Pierre Haguenauer, Benedikt Justen, Samuel Lévêque, Serge Ménardi, S. Morel, A. Müller, T. Phan Duc, E. Pozna, Andrés Ramírez, Nicolas Schuhler, D. Ségransan,

Advanced Measurement and Metrology Techniques

The Phase Referenced Imaging and Micro Arcsecond Astrometry (PRIMA) facility for the Very Large Telescope Interferometer (VLTI), is being installed and tested in the observatory of Paranal. Since January 2011 the integration and individual testing of the different subsystem has come to a necessary minimum. At the same time the astrometric commissioning phase has begun. In this contribution we give an update on the status of the facility and present some highlights and difficulties on our way from first dual-feed fringe detection to first astrometric measurements. We focus on technical and operational aspects. In particular, within the context of the latter we are going to present a modified mode of operation that scans across the fringes. We will show that this mode, originally only intended for calibration purposes, facilitates the detection of dual-fringes.