SPECKLE OBSERVATION OF VISUAL DOUBLE STARS AT BOSSCHA OBSERVATORY: SEPARATION AND MAGNITUDE DIFFERENCE LIMITS

We present the results of visual double stars speckle observations from 2013 using a Zeiss Double Refractor 60 cm with visual focal length f = 1,078 cm, and CCD SBIG ST-402 MEA. A Bessel V filter with ${\lambda}=550nm$ was placed in front of the CCD camera to reduce the chromatic aberration of the objective lens. The objects selected for this observation were calibration candidates and program stars with separations ranging from 0.9-6 arc second, and were located in both the northern and southern hemispheres. Seeing at Bosscha Observatory is generally 1-2 arc second, imposing a limit on visual double star separation below which the system cannot be resolved by long exposure imaging (longer than ~50 ms). Speckle interferometry methods are used to resolve double stars with separations below the typical size of seeing effects. A series of images were captured in fast short-time exposures (~50 ms) using a CCD camera. The result of our experiment shows that our system can be used to measure separations of 0.9 arc second (for systems with small ${\Delta}m$) and ${\Delta}m{\approx}3.7$ (for wide systems).