Speckle Interferometry with CMOS Detector

Abstract

In 2022 we carried out an upgrade of the speckle polarimeter (SPP)—the facility instrument of the 2.5-m telescope of the Caucasian Observatory of the SAI MSU. During the overhaul, CMOS Hamamatsu ORCA-Quest qCMOS C15550-20UP was installed as the main detector, some drawbacks of the previous version of the instrument were eliminated. In this paper, we present a description of the instrument, as well as study some features of the CMOS detector and ways to take them into account in speckle interferometric processing. Quantitative comparison of CMOS and EMCCD in the context of speckle interferometry is performed using numerical simulation of the detection process. Speckle interferometric observations of 25 young variable stars are given as an example of astronomical result. It was found that BM And is a binary system with a separation of 273 mas. The variability of the system is dominated by the brightness variations of the main component. A binary system was also found in NSV 16694 (TYC 120-876-1). The separation of this system is 202 mas.