Publication Date:
2020-04-20
Description:
Polarization plays an important role in various time-domain astrophysics to understand the magnetic fields, geometry, and environments of spatially unresolved variable sources. In this paper we present the results of laboratory and on-sky testing of a novel dual-beam, dual-camera optical imaging polarimeter (MOPTOP) exploiting high sensitivity, low-noise CMOS technology, and designed to monitor variable and transient sources with low systematic errors and high sensitivity. We present a data reduction algorithm that corrects for sensitivity variations between the cameras on a source-by-source basis. Using our data reduction algorithm, we show that our dual-beam, dual-camera technique delivers the benefits of low and stable instrumental polarization (
Print ISSN:
0035-8711
Electronic ISSN:
1365-2966
Topics:
Physics
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