Pupil-Segmented Photometry for Lunar Occultation Observation

摘要

Occultation is potentially a powerful tool for high-resolution astronomy. It can reach about a few milli-arcsec (mas) by lunar occultation observation and 0.1 mas by that of main-belt asteroids. Photon noise limits the resolution. If we use large telescope in order to increase the number of photons received by a telescope, the fringe pattern that is projected on the earth is averaged over the pupil and the visibility will decrease. I propose to use pupil-segmented method and its performance for lunar occultation. The optimum subaper-ture size is 2-4 m for lunar occultation. This method is effective for large (>8-10m) telescope. We can resolve in 6 mas for 16 mag star in >3 σ noise level using 8 m telescope.