First results from the ESO VLTI Calibrators Program

Abstract

The ESO Very Large Telescope Interferometer (VLTI) is one of the leading interferometric facilities. It is equipped with several 8.2 and 1.8m telescopes, a large number of baselines up to 200m, and with several subsystems designed to enable high quality measurements and to improve significantly the limits of sensitivities currently available to long-baseline interferometry. The full scientific potential of the VLTI can be exploited only if a consistent set of good quality calibrators is available. For this, a large number of observations of potential calibrators have been obtained during the commissioning phase of the VLTI. These data are publicly available. We briefly describe the interferometer, the VINCI instrument used for the observations, the data flow from acquisition to processed results, and we present and comment on the volume of observations gathered and scrutinized. The result is a list of 191 calibrator candidates, for which a total of 12066 observations can be deemed of satisfactory quality. We present a general statistical analysis of this sample, using as a starting point the angular diameters previously available in the literature.We derive the general characteristics of the VLTI transfer function, and its trend with time in the period 2001 through mid-2004. A second paper will be devoted to a detailed investigation of a selected sample, aimed at establishing a VLTI-based homogeneous system of calibrators.

arXiv comment10 pages, 11 figures, 4 tables (some tables only available in electronic form at the CDS), accepted for publication by Astronomy & Astrophysics

References in corpus (4)

• A catalog of bright calibrator stars for 200-meter baseline near-infrared stellar interferometry
• Tests of stellar model atmospheres by optical interferometry: VLTI/VINCI limb-darkening measurements of the M4 giant psi phe
• Data reduction methods for single-mode optical interferometry - Application to the VLTI two-telescopes beam combiner VINCI
• Direct multi-wavelength limb-darkening measurements of three late-type giants with the Navy Prototype Optical Interferometer

Cited by in corpus (14)

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• The Palomar Testbed Interferometer Calibrator Catalog
• VLTI/AMBER interferometric observations of the recurrent Nova RS Oph 5.5 days after outburst
• A close look into the carbon disk at the core of the planetary nebula CPD-568032
• Spectroscopic binaries among Hipparcos M giants III. The eccentricity-period diagram and mass-transfer signatures
• A List of Bright Interferometric Calibrators measured at the ESO VLTI
• The close circumstellar environment of the semi-regular S-type star Pi^1 Gruis
• Spatially resolving the outer atmosphere of the M giant BK Vir in the CO first overtone lines with VLTI/AMBER
• Interferometric study on the temporal variability of the brightness distributions of protoplanetary disks
• Angular Diameters and Fundamental Parameters of Forty-Four Stars from the Navy Precision Optical Interferometer
• Thirty-Three New Stellar Angular Diameters from the NPOI, and Nearly 180 NPOI Diameters as an Ensemble
• How much large dust could be present in hot exozodiacal dust systems?