AMBER - Astronomical Multi-BEam combineR
Summary
Image courtesy of the AMBER Consortium.
AMBER, the near-infrared/red focal instrument of the VLTI, operates in the bands J, H, and, K (ie 1.0 to 2.4 μm). The instrument has been designed to be used with two or three beams, thus enabling also the use of closure phase techniques. The magnitude limits of AMBER are K=7 with Low Resolution (LR-HK) on UTs and K=5 on the ATs, K=4 with Medium Resolution K-band (MR-K) on the UTs and K=1.6 on the ATs, and K=1.5 with High Resolution K-band (HR-K) on UTs.
Using AMBER with an external fringe tracker (FINITO, now available in P82 on both the UTs and the ATs). On the UTs it is possible to reach K=7 and H=7 in all spectral modes on AMBER, except High Resolution where the limiting magnitude is K=6. Using FINITO on the UTs is limited to Seeing 0.8" or better and CLEAR skies. On the ATs it is possible to reach K=5 and H=5 in all modes under optimal weather conditions ie Seeing ≤0.6" and Coherence time ≥3ms. For 0.6"<Seeing≤0.8" the limit is K=4 and H=4, and for 0.8"<Seeing≤1.2" the limit is K=3 and H=3. Depending on the required limiting magnitudes the user should request the proper weather constraints.
Below is a table showing the a summary of the absolute pre requisites for a target to be able to observe it with AMBER in Service Mode
Absolute Pre-requisites for AMBER in service mode
Mode is the Spectral Configuration, Kcorr and Hcorr the correlated magnitudes in K and H, VisK and VisH the K and H lowest visibility on the two shortest baselines, AM the Airmass of the target, Vmag the magnitude in the Visible of the guide star and Dist is the distance from the science object and the guide star.| Configuration | Absolute Pre-requisites | ||||||||
| Mode | Tel | FINITO | Kcorr | Hcorr | VisK | VisH | AM | Vmag | Dist |
| [magnitude] | [magnitude] | [magnitude] | [arcsec] | ||||||
| LR | UT | no | ≤7 | ≤7 | ≥0.1 | ≥0.1 | ≤2.0 | 1...17 | ≤57.5 |
| MRK | UT | no | ≤4 | ≥0.1 | ≤2.0 | 1...17 | ≤57.5 | ||
| HRK | UT | no | ≤1.5 | ≥0.1 | ≤2.0 | 1...17 | ≤57.5 | ||
| LR | AT | no | ≤5.1 | ≤5.5 | ≥0.05 | ≥0.05 | ≤2.0 | -1.7...13.5 | ≤60 |
| MRK | AT | no | ≤1.6 | ≥0.05 | ≤2.0 | -1.7...13.5 | ≤60 | ||
| HRK | AT | no | Not offered on the ATs without FINITO | ||||||
| LR | UT | yes | ≤7 | ≤7 | ≥0.1 | ≥0.1 | ≤1.5 | 1...13 | ≤15 |
| MRK | UT | yes | ≤7 | ≤7 | ≥0.1 | ≥0.1 | ≤1.5 | 1...13 | ≤15 |
| HRK | UT | yes | ≤6 | ≤6 | ≥0.1 | ≥0.1 | ≤1.5 | 1...13 | ≤15 |
| LR | AT | yes | ≤5 | ≤5 | ≥0.05 | ≥0.15 | ≤1.5 | -1.7...11 | ≤15 |
| MRK | AT | yes | ≤5 | ≤5 | ≥0.05 | ≥0.15 | ≤1.5 | -1.7...11 | ≤15 |
| HRK | AT | yes | ≤5 | ≤5 | ≥0.05 | ≥0.15 | ≤1.5 | -1.7...11 | ≤15 |
Publications
Publications based on data obtained with the AMBER instrument should quote
the following reference paper:
Petrov, R.G., et al. AMBER, the near-infrared spectro-interferometric three-telescope VLTI instrument, 2007, A&A, Vol. 464, Issue 1, pp.1-12.
Key People Involved
| Built under ESO contract by: | AMBER Consortium |
| Principal Investigator | Romain Petrov (Nice, France) |
| Project Scientist | Fabien Malbet (LAOG, Grenoble, France) |
| Instrument Scientist (Garching): | Andrea Richichi |
| Instrument Scientist (Paranal): | Fredrik T Rantakyrö, Stan Stefl |
| Instrument Software Support: | Andres Ramirez |
| Instrument Hardware Support: | Pedro Mardones |
Contact Information
- Questions related to service mode observations and proposal preparation should be addressed to the User Support Department.
- Questions related to visitor mode observations should be addressed to Paranal Science Operations
- Please send us your comments, suggestions and report errors and inaccurate statements in the web pages and manuals.
Content of these pages
The following items are available on all the AMBER pages, using the bar on the left.- News: list of changes affecting the instrument and/or its pages.
- Overview: a short description of the instrument
- Instrument Description: all the important parameters of the instrument.
- Manuals: links to all the documents related to AMBER.
- Tools: a collection of useful tools and informations for preparing and analyzing the AMBER observations.
- Instrument Operations Team
- Links: miscellaneous links about interferometry and AMBER.
- Visitor Instructions: Instrument specific instructions for Visiting Astronomers
- Consortium: A list of the AMBER Consortium contributing Institutes.