Resolved Asteroid Program (RAP) IQ Results
We observed similar Main Belt asteroids in both the H and Kp filters before and after the NGWFC upgrade.
These two objects each subtend approximately one quarter arcsecond (approximately 5 resolution elements at Kp).
Preliminary analysis indicates that Strehl ratios for both H and Kp improved dramatically following
the NGWFC upgrade. Moreover, these preliminary results indicate that the Strehl achievable with H is
now
(given its lower diffraction limit)
sufficiently high to make it preferable to Kp on nights of average to good seeing.
As a result, the Resolved Asteroid Program (RAP)
team has changed their observing strategy to always begin observing
with H on nights
of good to average seeing.
The figure below provides Strehl values from data taken before and after
the upgrade.
Note that the Strehl values provided here were computed using a technique that
differs from the standard method.
For these extended sources,
we took the Strehls of the perfect Lorentzians extracted from a fit.
We have found that these do not differ substantially from Strehls measured
on point sources appearing in the same field.
Therefore, we believe that these Strehls
are valid for this before-and-after comparison,
