Telescope Making

Edited by Roger W. Sinnott

Swiss amateur Andreas Maurer has effectively doubled the resolving power of his 8-inch Celestron telescope for certain bright binary stars. The cardboard mask and sliding screen transform the telescope into an optical interferometer. As he explains in this article, both the slit spacing and mask orientation enter into the observations. The arrows are used to measure the slit spacing. The mask is carried by a collar (hidden here) that controls the mask orientation. The author supplied both photographs.

Cardboard Double-Star Interferometer

LIMPSING DETAILS at the extreme limit of a telescopes resolution has always held great fascination for astronomers. But the clearest possible eyepiece view or direct image is not the only means to this end. The powerful technique of optical interferometry has a long history and a very promising future, as explained by Daniel Fischer ( S&T: November 1996, page 36). In the professional arena, a number of optical interferometers have begun observations or are being built. But what does this mean for the backyard observer? Must we be bystanders, awed by the sophistication and expense of these instruments? Can amateurs make observations of this type? While browsing through the French classic Lunettes et Tlescopes by Andr Danjon and Andr Couder (Paris, 1935), I learned about an interference microm-

Almost any telescope can be used to try out this technique. No accurate guiding is needed.
eter that was used more than a century ago to measure the separations of very close binary stars and the diameters of Jupiters satellites. Later innovations by the physicist A. A. Michelson led to the stellar interferometer that was mounted on the 100-inch Mount Wilson reflector and used in 1920 for the first true measurements of star diameters. Why not build, or rather improvise, a similar device and try it out on my 8-inch Schmidt-Cassegrain? I am happy to report that my efforts in this direction were
1997 Sky Publishing Corp. All rights reserved.

a success. To say the least, the experiment has been quite informative. BACKGROUND This type of micrometer works on the principle of interference of light waves. When a remote point source is viewed through a telescope, the image consists of the well-known Airy disk and a few surrounding diffraction rings of light. When two adjacent point sources are viewed, two such patterns overlap. Now, suppose you mask the objective except for two small openings on either side of center. They can be circular holes, but rectangular slits are better because they admit more light. When the telescope is aimed at just one point source, the two openings will produce a linear streak of alternating bright and dark knots (fringes). If you look at two close point sources March 1997 Sky & Telescope 91

B C A
S W N E

AB C

Maurers most interesting target was the wellknown triple star, Zeta Cancri, barely resolved with an 8-inch telescope in very good seeing. After orienting the mask and adjusting the slit spacing to cancel the fringes of the close AB pair, he could still see the full-blown fringe pattern of the C component, effectively a single star. (C itself does happen to be an astrometric binary, with components too close to resolve in any telescope.)

with this mask, a more complex pattern is formed. Its structure depends on the sources angular separation as well as the physical spacing between the two slits. Perhaps at first just a normal fringe pattern is seen. But if the slits have a certain orientation and spacing relative to the double point source, the maxima of one fringe pattern will be superimposed on the minima of the other, and vice versa. The fringes will disappear more or less completely! One requirement is that the line joining the slits be roughly parallel to that joining the two stars. In astronomical terms, the position angle projected on the sky, measured counterclockwise from north, should be about the same for the double star and the slits. Another requirement, and a rather limiting one, is that the two stars be nearly alike in brightness. When the fringes disappear, the twin sources angular separation, s, expressed in radians, is given by the formula s = /(2 d ), where is the wavelength of the light and d is the spacing of the slits, measured between their centers. The yellow-green light to which the eye is most sensitive has a wavelength of about 5500 angstroms, or 0.00055 millimeter. When s is expressed in arcseconds and d in mm, the formula simplifies to s = 56.72/ d and is ready to use for measuring close binary stars. CONSTRUCTION TIPS I decided to make the rectangular slits 25 mm wide and 90 mm high. Arranged on a screen in front of my telescopes 200-mm corrector plate, the maximum possible distance between slit centers is about 165 mm. This means I can measure angles as small as 0.35 arcsecond. At the other extreme, the closest practical 92 Sky & Telescope March 1997

slit spacing is about 50 mm before the secondary-mirror obstruction interferes. It follows that I can make the fringes disappear for stars up to 1.1 arcseconds apart.

While Dawes limit for an 8-inch telescope is 0.57", my device measures stars as close as 0.35".
My micrometer is made of 2-mm-thick cardboard, a knife and glue being the only tools needed. The main frame has a large cutout to admit light and a collar on the back to keep it centered on the telescope and allow rotation. To the frame I glued guides for a screen that

consists of four pieces of cardboard, hinged together with tape like a folding door. I also attached two linear scales (photocopies of a ruler). Arrows aligned with the center of each slit help me keep the slits equidistant from the center and measure their exact spacing. At first I tried the interference micrometer on an artificial double star of the type I described in this department several years ago (S&T: September 1991, page 311). Such testing is recommended and easy, because the position angle is known and the separation is easily changed. Interestingly, while Dawes limit for double stars seen with an 8-inch telescope is 0.57 arcsecond, the interference micrometer measures separations as small as 0.35 arcsecond. When you are using this device on a real double star, the goal is to determine the position angle as well as the separation. I found it best to start with a reasonably small slit distance and rotate the mask in 30 increments of position angle from 0 to 150. It is not necessary to continue beyond 150 because the 180 configuration is the same as 0. In other words, with this device the position angle has a 180 ambiguity. But that is true anyway in double-star work when the components have the same brightness and color. As soon as the fringes become less sharp and distinct it is time to fine-tune the adjustments. Increase the slit distance little by little until the fringes disappear or show the least possible contrast. At this point the position angle and separation can be measured. If you overshoot the optimum spacing the fringes come

BRIGHT BINARY STARS Star Cen Equ Boo CrB R 65 Cnc AB 2173 Lup Oph Sgr Cas 72 Peg Com UMa Sco Right Ascension 12 20h 14h 15h 6h 8h 17h 15h 17h 19h 0h 23h 13h 9h 16h
h

Declination 48 +4 +13 +30 50 +17 1 41 15 29 +54 +31 +17 +54 11 58' 18' 44' 17' 14' 39' 04' 10' 43' 53' 31' 20' 32' 04' 22'

Magnitudes 2.9 6.0 4.5 5.6 6.0 5.6 6.0 3.5 3.0 3.2 5.5 5.7 5.0 5.3 4.8 2.9 6.3 4.6 5.9 6.1 6.0 6.1 3.6 3.5 3.4 5.8 5.8 5.1 5.4 5.1

Position Angle Separation 349 284 301 52 268 104 323 274 239 244 190 95 12 251 231 1.12" 0.88" 0.85" 0.85" 0.79" 0.75" 0.75"* 0.68" 0.58" 0.57" 0.56" 0.53" 0.28"* 0.25" 0.20"

41.5 59.1m 41.1m 23.2m 29.8m 12.2m 30.4m 35.1m 10.4m 02.6m 31.8m 34.0m 10.0m 52.1m 04.4m

These close, bright binary stars are well suited for interferometric or resolution tests with 6- to 12-inch telescopes. Right ascensions and declinations are for equinox 2000.0, but position angles and separations have been calculated for mid-1997 by Roger W. Sinnott from the orbital elements in Sky Catalogue 2000.0, Vol. 2. Most separations change slowly, but the two asterisked values actually shrink by 0.1 arcsecond between the beginning and end of the year.

1997 Sky Publishing Corp. All rights reserved.

back into view, appearing more cramped than before. Some care is needed with the position angle. The slits are in front of the telescope, and their physical orientation corresponds to that of the binary star being measured. Through the eyepiece the fringe angle may be different, depending on the intervening optics. FIELD TRIALS My first outdoor test was Zeta () Botis, whose components are of magnitude 4.5 and 4.6. In early 1996 they had a calculated separation of 0.87 arcsecond in position angle 301. When I looked at the pair with the telescopes full aperture, atmospheric turbulence, or bad seeing, prevented me from splitting the pair properly, so the trial with the interferometer was a challenge. Using 190 and 275 and a slit separation of 50 mm, I could still see the fringes. But when I increased the spacing in small steps to almost 65 mm, they vanished! Hence the 0.87-arcsecond separation was nicely confirmed. The famous triple star Zeta () Cancri was my next target. Its A and B components, of magnitude 5.6 and 6.0, were 0.72 arcsecond apart. The 6.2-magnitude C star was 5.96 arcseconds away. When I adjusted the micrometer to make the fringes from A and B disappear, those from C were unaffected and remained crisp (see the facing diagram). Being able to see both kinds of fringe patterns in the same field is particularly instructive and a good clue to the influence of bad seeing and other factors. Generally, I have found that the fringe pattern is less affected by seeing than is a stars image formed by the full aperture. On the other hand, the intensity is greatly reduced, and a double star with components fainter than about magnitude 6.5 is beyond the practical limit of an 8-inch telescope. A larger instrument could reach more binaries because it would allow the use of larger slits and a greater range of spacings. But a larger scope is also more affected by seeing. Almost any telescope can be used to try out this technique. No accurate guiding is needed you just have to keep the stars in the field of view. It would also be quite interesting to try a CCD camera in place of the eye for observations of this type. ANDREAS MAURER Im Tobel 9 CH-8706 Feldmeilen Switzerland

Rotating in step with Mars itself, this globe, motorized by English amateur Malcolm Drobig, serves as a helpful aid in the corner of an observatory. A glance toward it identifies surface features seen in a telescope, without the need to calculate, for the time of each observation, the longitude of the planets central meridian. The initial setting can be made with the help of the table on page 87 of the January issue. It lists the central-meridian longitude at 0:00 Universal Time on every day through May of this year.

Motorizing a Mars Globe

S MARS nears opposition March 17th and becomes well placed for viewing over the next few months, a simple device can make it easy to identify dusky markings and other features seen in a telescope. After purchasing a Mars globe a few years ago, I had the idea to rotate the globe slowly with a motor so it would just keep pace with the red planet itself. As sold by Sky Publishing Corp., the 12-inch globe comes with a clear plastic pedestal. I found this molding sufficiently circular to ride smoothly on three upturned pulleys (yacht bolt-down blocks) mounted around the circumference of a 9-inch-diameter mahogany base. A motor

under the pedestal provides rotation, while pointers on the base and one of the blocks help in setting the planets central-meridian longitude. Once the globe is placed to match the real planet in the sky, it remains correctly oriented for many nights to come. I decided to power my globe with a 12-volt battery and a spare inverter left over from a star-tracker project. Together they provided 12 volts AC with a frequency of 50 hertz. Rotalink of Crewkerne, Somerset, had a suitable synchronous motor whose shaft turned counterclockwise once every 24 hours. The problem was then to slow the motors shaft to turn once in a Martian sidereal
Clockwise from top, the components include the wood base with inverter (right) and motor (center), cable supplying 12 volts DC, switchbox, propeller with locking collar and Allen key, and the plastic pedestal that comes with the Mars globe. Sky & Telescope photographs by Chuck Baker.

A recently retired engineer, Maurer is compiling a catalog of Herschel telescopes.

1997 Sky Publishing Corp. All rights reserved.

March 1997 Sky & Telescope

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