neering run at Gemini was short, we tested
our speckle imager on a wide sample of potential exoplanet host stars from the CoRoT
and Kepler missions.
When mounted on Gemini North, DSSI can
reach to deep limiting magnitudes and observe very faint target stars. Both of these
factors represent new limits for any speckle
imaging observations and promises to provide a powerful tool for the validation of
Earth analogues.
To show the variety of possible programs
that would benefit from the high-resolution images available with DSSI and Gemini
North, our fully-resolved observations of
Pluto and Charon are shown in Figure 4 compared to the sizes of some well-known stars.
Charon has a smaller angular size than the
star Betelgeuse, highlighting the possibility
of using our camera system to resolve and
study surface details for large stars and other
resolved objects, as well.
Given the great potential for a number of
types of high-resolution images, DSSI is likely to return to Gemini North for observations
in mid-2013 for general user programs from
across the international Gemini partnership.
Any such arrangement will be announced
along with the call for proposals for Semester 13B, in February 2013.
8
GeminiFocus
References:
Howell, Steve B., et al., The Astronomical Journal,
42: 1257, 2011
Howell, Steve B., et al., Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific, 124: 1124, 2012
Horch, Elliott, et al., The Astronomical Journal,
141: 45, 2011
Horch, Elliott, et al., The Astronomical Journal,
144: 165, 2012
Steve B. Howell is the Project Scientist for the
NASA Kepler Mission, at NASA Ames Research
Center, near San Francisco, California. He can be
reached at: [email protected]
Elliott Horch is an associate professor of physics
at Southern Connecticut State University. His email address is: [email protected]
Mark E. Everett is a research associate at the National Optical Astronomy Observatory in Tucson,
Arizona. His email address is:
[email protected]
David Ciardi is an Associate Research Scientist at
the NASA Exoplanet Science Institute at Caltech.
His email address is: [email protected]
December2012