Imaging binary stars by the cross-correlation technique

Abstract

We present in this paper a technique for imaging binary stars from speckle data. This technique is based upon the computation of the cross-correlation between the speckle frames and their square. This may be considered as a simple, easy to implement, complementary computation to the autocorrelation function of Labeyrie's technique for a rapid determination of the position angle of binary systems. Angular separation, absolute position angle and relative photometry of binary stars can be derived from this technique. We show an application to the bright double star zeta Sge observed at the 2m Telescope Bernard Lyot.