Summary
The Astrometric Telescope Facility (ATF) proposed for use on NASA's planned Space Station is similar in form and data output to ground-based long focus astrometric instruments. With a focal plane scale of 12.7 arc seconds/mm, the strawman design has a field size of 10 arc min square and a limiting visual magnitude fainter than 16. Output from an observation includes the X and Y coordinates of each star and its relative brightness. The targeted precision for the AFT is 0.00001 arc seconds.
Portions of the observing program will be made available to members of the astronomical community.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Bandermann, L., Bareket, N., and Metheny (1983). “Comparative feasibility study of two concepts for a space based astrometric satellite”, NASA Contractor Report 166403.
Black, D. C. (1980). Project Orion, A Design Study of a System for Detecting Extrasolar Planets. NASA SP-436, 174.
Black, D. C., and Brunk, W. E. (1980). “An Assessment of Ground-Based Techniques for Detecting Other Planetary Systems”, NASA Conference Publication 2124 (in two volumes).
Dyer, J. W., Nishioka, K., Sobeck, C. K., Gatewood, G., Levy, E. H. (1987). “Conceptual Design Considerations for the Astrometric Telescope Facility”, IAU Colloquium 100, Fundamentals of Astrometry (edited by I Pakvor and H. K. Eichhorn).
Gatewood, G. (1987). “The Multichannel Astrometric Photometer and Atmospheric Limitations in the Measurement of Relative Positions”, Astron. J., 94, 213.
Gatewood, G., Breakiron, L. A., Goebel, R., Kipp, S., Russell, J. L., and Stein, J. W. (1980). “On the astrometric detection of neighboring planetary systems II”, Icarus, 39, 205.
Gatewood, G. D., Castelaz, M. W., Stein, J. W., Levy, E. H., McMillan, R. S., Nishioka, K., Scargle, J. D. (1987). “A Prototype Detector for the Astrometric Telescope Facility”, IAU Symposium 133.
Gatewood, G., Stein, J. W., DiFatta, C., Kiewiet de Jonge, K., Breakiron, L. (1985). “A Preliminary Look at Astrometric Accuracy as a Function of Photon Counts”, Astron. J., 90, 2397.
Greenstein, J. (1976). “Minutes-Second Workshop on Extrasolar Planetary Detection”, NASA-Ames Research Center.
Kovalevsky, J. (1984). “Prospects for Space Stellar Astrometry”, Space Science Reviews, vol. 39, 29.
Levy, E. H., Gatewood, G., Stein, J. W. and McMillan, R. S. (1986). “Astrometric Telescope of ten microarcsecond accuracy on the Space Station”, Proceed of SPIE 628, 181.
Levy, E. H., McMillan, R. S., Gatewood, G. D., Stein, J. W., Castelaz, M. W. Buffington, A., Nishioka, K., and Scargle, J. D. (1987). “Discovery and Study of Planetary Systems Using Astrometry from Space”, IAU Colloquium 99.
Scargle, J. D., Nishioka, K., and Gatewood, G. (1987). “NASA's Astrometric Telescope Facility”, IAU Symposium 133.
Sobeck, C. (1987). “Astrometric Telescope Facility: Preliminary Systems Definition Study”, Vol I and II, edited by. NASA Technical Memorandum 89429.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Black, D., Dyer, J., Nishioka, K. et al. The Astrometric Telescope Facility. Astrophys Space Sci 177, 307–313 (1991). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00643696
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00643696