1. Commissioning the VLT interferometer: from first fringes toward a general user facility
- Author
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Sebastien Morel, Roy van Boekel, Antonio Longinotti, Emmanuel di Folco, Pascal Ballester, Serge Menardi, Arno van Kesteren, Anders Wallander, Walter Jaffe, Andrea Richichi, Philippe Duhoux, Toomas Erm, Gerhard Huedepohl, Markus Schoeller, Bertrand Bauvir, M. Tarenghi, A. Rijo, Andres Pino, Stefan Sandrock, Rainer Wilhelm, Alexis Huxley, Jason Spyromilio, S. Jackisch, Alberto Gennai, Andreas Glindemann, Samuel Lévêque, Sylvie Robbe-Dubois, Francesco Paresce, Damien Ségransan, Isabelle Percheron, Francoise Delplancke, D. Rabeling, Mario Kiekebusch, Serge Correia, Roberto Tamai, Cyrus Sabet, T. Phan Duc, Vincent Coudé du Foresto, Frederic Derie, Bertrand Koehler, Javier Argomedo, Philippe B. Gitton, Lothar Noethe, Paul Giordano, Michael Cantzler, Stephane Guisard, Nico Housen, Pablo Gutierrez, A. Ramirez, W. D. Cotton, Bruno Gilli, Pierre Kervella, Markus Wittkowski, Laboratoire d'études spatiales et d'instrumentation en astrophysique (LESIA), Université Pierre et Marie Curie - Paris 6 (UPMC)-Institut national des sciences de l'Univers (INSU - CNRS)-Observatoire de Paris, Université Paris sciences et lettres (PSL)-Université Paris sciences et lettres (PSL)-Université Paris Diderot - Paris 7 (UPD7)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), Pôle Astronomie du LESIA, and Université Paris sciences et lettres (PSL)-Université Paris sciences et lettres (PSL)-Université Paris Diderot - Paris 7 (UPD7)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Université Pierre et Marie Curie - Paris 6 (UPMC)-Institut national des sciences de l'Univers (INSU - CNRS)-Observatoire de Paris
- Subjects
Physics ,Interferometry ,Sky ,Project commissioning ,media_common.quotation_subject ,Astronomical interferometer ,User Facility ,Baseline (configuration management) ,[PHYS.ASTR]Physics [physics]/Astrophysics [astro-ph] ,media_common ,Remote sensing - Abstract
On March 17, 2001, the VLT interferometer saw for the first time interferometric fringes on sky with its two test siderostats on a 16m baseline. Seven months later, on October 29, 2001, fringes were found with two of the four 8.2m Unit Telescopes (UTs), named Antu and Melipal, spanning a baseline of 102m. First shared risk science operations with VLTI will start in October 2002. The time between these milestones is used for further integration as well as for commissioning of the interferometer with the goal to understand all its characteristics and to optimize performance and observing procedures. In this article we will describe the various commissioning tasks carried out and present some results of our work.
- Published
- 2002