The "iron blow" at the Linda goldfield

From 1875 to 1877 Mr. Thureau held a position as Lecturer at the Bendigo (Victoria) School of Mines, of "Geology as applied to Mining," Mineralogy; also practical Mining, the Administrative Council of that institution arranged during each winter for a series of public lectures on Popular Science, and at such he elaborated a series of lectures upon the hydrothermal origin of the famous Bendigo Quartz Reefs. He was subsequently elected, upon unsolicited nominations and recommendations, as a Fellow of the Geological Society of London, which honourable position he still holds and treasures. The discovery of silver in the ash or mud, adds, for the first time, this metal to the list of elementary substances observed in the materials ejected from volcanoes, and the addition derived some special interest from the fact of this ash having come from the greatest volcanic (active) vents of that great "argentiferous" zone of the Andes. Small as would be the proportion of silver, it must represent a very large quantity of that metal ejected during the eruption, in view of the vast masses of volcanic ash, etc., distributed over the large area which is indicated by the fall of argentiferous ashes at a distance of 102 miles from the central crater to Bahia de Caraguez. Mr. Thureau states that, if silver, lead, iron, manganese, titanium, chlorium, mercury and other less important metals occur in volcanic ash or mud shown by frequent analyses, as derived, inter alia from the immensely rich argentiferous formations which that gigantic "vent" cotopaxi protrudes; a similar occurrence here on a smaller scale, within a well-known "auriferous zone" is not only feasible, but can be, or is now, demonstrated to be a fact. The only, and to us most valuable difference, is, that the South America ejecta expelled the silver in its ashes, whilst, with our "Iron Blow" the ash or "mud" is still retained within the "dead" vent or closed fissure, and happily for the colony at large, it is comeatable, and it can be extracted by future systematic mining operations, followed by skilful treatment for the rich gold it is reported same contains

Control interface concepts for CHARA 6-telescope fringe tracking with CHAMP+MIRC

Cophasing six telescopes from the CHARA array, the CHARA-Michigan Phasetracker (CHAMP) and Michigan Infrared Combiner (MIRC) are pushing the frontiers of infrared long-baseline interferometric imaging in key scientific areas such as star- and planet-formation. Here we review our concepts and recent improvements on the CHAMP and MIRC control interfaces, which establish the communication to the real-time data recording & fringe tracking code, provide essential performance diagnostics, and assist the observer in the alignment and flux optimization procedure. For fringe detection and tracking with MIRC, we have developed a novel matrix approach, which provides predictions for the fringe positions based on cross-fringe information.Comment: 6 pages, 4 figures, published in SPIE conference proceedings (http://dx.doi.org/10.1117/12.926559

First images on the sky from a hyper telescope

We show star images obtained with a miniature ``densified pupil imaging interferometer'' also called a hyper-telescope. The formation of such images violates a ``golden rule of imaging interferometers'' which appeared to forbid the use of interferometric arrangements differing from a Fizeau interferometer. These produce useless images when the sub-apertures spacing is much wider than their size, owing to diffraction through the sub-apertures. The hyper-telescope arrangement solves these problems opening the way towards multi-kilometer imaging arrays in space. We experimentally obtain an intensity gain of 24 +- 3X when a densified-pupil interferometer is compared to an equivalent Fizeau-type interferometer and show images of the double star alpha Gem. The initial results presented confirm the possibility of directly obtaining high resolution and high dynamic range images in the recombined focal plane of a large interferometer if enough elements are used.Comment: 6 pages, LaTeX, standard A&A macros + BibTeX macros. Accepted for publication in Astronomy and Astrophysics Supplement

Monte-Carlo imaging for optical interferometry

We present a flexible code created for imaging from the bispectrum and V². By using a simulated annealing method, we limit the probability of converging to local chi-squared minima as can occur when traditional imaging methods are used on data sets with limited phase information. We present the results of our code used on a simulated data set utilizing a number of regularization schemes including maximum entropy. Using the statistical properties from Monte-Carlo Markov chains of images, we show how this code can place statistical limits on image features such as unseen binary companions

Monte-Carlo imaging for optical interferometry

We present a flexible code created for imaging from the bispectrum and V². By using a simulated annealing method, we limit the probability of converging to local chi-squared minima as can occur when traditional imaging methods are used on data sets with limited phase information. We present the results of our code used on a simulated data set utilizing a number of regularization schemes including maximum entropy. Using the statistical properties from Monte-Carlo Markov chains of images, we show how this code can place statistical limits on image features such as unseen binary companions

GI2T/REGAIN spectro-interferometry with a new infrared beam combiner

We have built an infrared beam combiner for the GI2T/REGAIN interferometer of the Observatoire de la Cote d'Azur. The beam combiner allows us to record spectrally dispersed Michelson interference fringes in the near-infrared J-, H- or K-bands. The beam combiner has the advantage that Michelson interferograms can simultaneously be recorded in about 128 different spectral channels. The tilt of the spectrally dispersed fringes is a measure of the instantaneous optical path difference. We present the optical design of the beam combiner and GI2T/REGAIN observations of the Mira star R Cas with this beam combiner in the spectral range of 2.00 micron - 2.18 micron (observations on 22 and 25 August 1999; variability phase 0.08; V-magnitude approx. 6; seven baselines between 12m and 24m; reference stars Vega and Beta Peg). The spectrograph of the beam combiner consists of an anamorphotic cylindrical lens system, an image plane slit, and a grism. A system of digital signal processors calculates the ensemble average power spectrum of the spectrally dispersed Michelson interferograms and the instantaneous optical path difference error in real time. From the observed R Cas visibilities at baselines 12.0m, 13.8m and 13.9m, a 2.1 micron uniform-disk diameter of 25.3mas +/-3.3mas was derived. The unusually high visibility values at baselines >16m show that the stellar surface of R Cas is more complex than previously assumed. The visibility values at baselines >16m can be explained by high-contrast surface structure on the stellar surface of R Cas or other types of unexpected center-to-limb variations. The R Cas observations were compared with theoretical Mira star models yielding a linear Rosseland radius of 276Rsun +/-66Rsun and an effective temperature of 2685K+/-238K for R Cas at phase 0.08.Comment: 10 pages, 6 figures, see also http://www.mpifr-bonn.mpg.de/div/speckle, SPIE conf 4006 "Interferometry in Optical Astronomy", in pres

Control interface concepts for CHARA 6-telescope fringe tracking with CHAMP+MIRC

This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from SPIE via the DOI in this record.Cophasing six telescopes from the CHARA array, the CHARA-Michigan Phasetracker (CHAMP) and Michigan Infrared Combiner (MIRC) are pushing the frontiers of infrared long-baseline interferometric imaging in key scientific areas such as star- and planet-formation. Here we review our concepts and recent improvements on the CHAMP and MIRC control interfaces, which establish the communication to the real-time data recording & fringe tracking code, provide essential performance diagnostics, and assist the observer in the alignment and flux optimization procedure. For fringe detection and tracking with MIRC, we have developed a novel matrix approach, which provides predictions for the fringe positions based on cross-fringe information.This work was performed in part under contract with the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) funded by NASA through the Sagan Fellowship Program