Expert: Jayendra Upadhye - 1/28/2008

Question
Hello
Is there any observational data on the web that show the orbital rotation and period of a binary star system, with accuracy of minute? (Is such acurate observation possible?)
Thank you

Answer
Hi,
Just type "spectroscopic data of orbiting binary" into yahoo!

[Doing any research means to hack away at the intervening "Avidya" (lack of knowledge), using intelligent queries!!].
Select the 4th link...for example..


It is a Acrobat PDF file, MIT & CALTECH..

By the way, the first interferometer of repute was that devised by Michelson & Morley in aid of their quest for the elusive ether! They did use it then to measure the actual diameter of Betelguese, A red giant, with the largest apparent diameter in the galaxy! (wrt to us, given its distance from us).

refer to table 3 [Best-Fit Orbital Parameters for HD 6118]on this site:-
http://msc.caltech.edu/missions/Palomar/publications/konacki_lane_2004.pdf

There you will find the period of the spectroscopic binaries HD 6118 & HD 27483 observed from the Mt.Palomar testbed ITERFEROMETER, to be ...
Apparent semimajor axis, 5.56 +/- 0.04 (0.03/0.03) mas
Period, P                81.12625 +/- 2.7 (2.0/1.7) * 10^-4 days
ie in (1/10000)ths of a day ie a least count of 3600*24/10000=8.64 seconds!!

What more would you want?

Unfortunately the more detailed your question, the more "jargonistic" the answer!
regards
Jayen