Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astronomy
Scientific paper
Jan 2009
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2009aas...21347419t&link_type=abstract
American Astronomical Society, AAS Meeting #213, #474.19; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 41, p.430
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Astronomy
Scientific paper
We present the results of an observing campaign at the US Naval Observatory, Flagstaff Station examining the relationship between anomalous refraction and coherent motions in the atmosphere. Anomalous refraction is a quasi-periodic error in astrometric positions with characteristic timescales of minutes to tens of minutes and amplitudes of up to several tenths of an arcsecond. Three dissimilar telescopes observed the same star field in drift-scan mode in tandem with a suite of atmospheric instrumentation for nine nights in 2008. All resulting astrometric data, when referenced against standard catalogs, such as UCAC2 or the Carlsberg Meridian Catalog, consistently exhibits residuals typical of anomalous refraction as described by previously published accounts. Comparing residuals from astrometric data taken simultaneously on multiple telescopes indicates whether the observed anomalous refraction is due to atmospheric effects that are coherent over spatial scales corresponding to the telescope separation (e.g. atmospheric gravity waves), or more localized sources (e.g. telescope motion, dome seeing). Atmospheric observations (wind, surface pressure, temperature, etc.) provide additional information on which conditions may be related to the occurrence of anomalous refraction and allow correlation of specific astrometric error timescales and events with certain atmospheric or weather conditions. This research constitutes the first detailed study of anomalous refraction employing multiple telescopes, weather instrumentation and instruments specifically designed to observe large-scale coherent atmospheric motions. As such these results provide valuable new insight into the phenomenon of anomalous refraction.
McGraw Jason
Pier Jean
Taylor Suzanne
Zimmer Peter
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