BINARY STAR ORBITS. III. REVISITING THE REMARKABLE CASE OF TWEEDLEDUM AND TWEEDLEDEE
- U.S. Naval Observatory, 3450 Massachusetts Avenue, NW, Washington, DC, 20392-5420 (United States)
Two of the most challenging objects for optical interferometry in the middle of the last century were the close components (FIN 332) of the wide visual binary STF2375 (= WDS 18455+0530 = HIP 92027 = ADS 11640). Each component of the wide pair was found to have subcomponents of approximately the same magnitude, position angle, and separation and, hence, were designated by the tongue-in-cheek monikers 'Tweedledum and Tweedledee' by the great visual interferometrist William S. Finsen in 1953. They were later included in a list of 'Double Stars that Vex the Observer' by W.H. van den Bos in 1958. While speckle interferometry has reaped a rich harvest investigating the close inteferometric binaries of Finsen, the 'Tweedles' have continued to both fascinate and exasperate due to both the great similarity of the close pairs and the inherent 180{sup 0} ambiguity associated with interferometry. Detailed analysis of all published observations of the system has revealed several errors which are here corrected, allowing for determination of these orbital elements which resolve the quadrant ambiguity. A unique software filter was developed which allowed subarrays from archival ICCD speckle data from 1982 to be re-reduced. Those data, combined with new and unpublished observations obtained in 2001-2009 from NOAO 4 m telescopes, the Mount Wilson 100 inch telescope and the Naval Observatory Flagstaff Station 61 inch telescope as well as high-quality unresolved measures all allow for the correct orbits to be determined. Co-planarity of the multiple system is also investigated.
- OSTI ID:
- 21443285
- Journal Information:
- Astronomical Journal (New York, N.Y. Online), Vol. 140, Issue 1; Other Information: DOI: 10.1088/0004-6256/140/1/242; ISSN 1538-3881
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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