Testing the accuracy of WeDoWo
Summary
The standard star data suggests that
- full moon or twilight might bias the measurements
- the measured polarization is slightly lower than the literature value
The test data
High and zero polarization standard stars were observed
during five nights in October and November 2012.
For the calibrations dome flats were taken with two
rotator position angles (ROTPOS=0 and ROTPOS=90)
with the same integration time,
typically ten+ten frames.
The data was reduced in a standard manner,
the dome flats were combined after bias subtraction.
After this,
the standard star data were bias subtracted, trimmed and
flatfield corrected.
The data from each night data were reduced in a similar way.
In most cases the calculated polarization was less than
the literature value, e.g the measured V-band
linear polarization of BD+64106
was about 5.4% (nights of vj13,vj15, vk09) using WeDoWo, however
the literature value is 5.7%.
The zero polarization stars showed low, close to zero (0.1-0.2%),
polarization in all but one night.
The typical error of degree of polarization of one measurement
was about 0.1%.
The data from the night of vj24 were different to other nights,
the high polarization star measurements show lower polarization
( BD+64106 V(vj24)= 4.5%) than other nights and zero polarization data
show higher polarization (HD12021 V(vj24)= 0.8%).
We note that during the nights of vj13,vj15, vk09 the moon
illumination was between 0 to 20% and 79% in the night of vj24.
The B- and i-band data show similar trend to the V-band data.
In addition, in the night of vk13 high polarization stars
BD+59389 and HD25443 were observed five
and four times, respectively, through i-filter.
All measurements show similar values, slightly below the
literature value (5.1% vs 5.80%, for BD+59389 and
3.1% vs 4.25%, for HD25443), but the "variability" was within
the measurement errors.
Some standard star measurements |
Name |
Filter |
P literature (%) |
night |
P measured (%) |
P error(%) |
Comment |
BD+64106 |
B |
5.506 ± 0.090 |
vj13 vj15 |
5.3 5.3 |
0.11 0.11 |
  |
BD+64106 |
V |
5.687 ± 0.037 |
vj13 vj13 vk09 |
5.3 5.4 5.4 |
0.14 0.08 0.08 |
bad seeing |
BD+64106 |
i |
4.696 ± 0.052 |
vj13 vj13 vj15 vj24 vk09 |
4.7 4.6 4.2 3.8 4.5 |
0.13 0.09 0.09 0.10 0.10 |
bad seeing,80%moon bad seeing |
BD+59 389 |
V |
6.701 ± 0.015 |
vk13 vk13 vk13 vk13 |
5.8 5.9 5.7 5.8 |
0.12 0.07 0.07 0.07 |
  |
BD+59 389 |
i |
5.797 ± 0.023 |
vk13 vk13 vk13 vk13 vk13 |
5.2 5.1 5.2 5.2 5.1 |
0.07 0.09 0.09 0.09 0.09 |
  |
HD25443 |
V |
5.127 ± 0.061 |
vk13 vk13 vk13 vk13 |
4.1 4.2 4.2 3.1 |
0.06 0.06 0.06 0.07 |
twilight twilight twilight twilight
|
HD25443 |
R |
4.734 ± 0.045 |
xc11
|
3.9
|
0.04 |
  |
HD25443 |
i |
4.249 ± 0.041 |
vk13 vk13 vk13 vk13 |
3.1 3.2 3.0 3.1 |
0.07 0.07 0.07 0.07 |
twilight twilight twilight twilight
|
Zero polarization standards |
G191B2B |
B |
0.090 ± 0.048 |
vk13 vk13 |
0.61 0.77 |
0.18 0.12 |
twilight |
G191B2B |
V |
0.090 ± 0.048 (B) |
vk13 |
0.85 |
0.09 |
twilight |
G191B2B |
R |
0.090 ± 0.048 (B) |
xc11 |
0.10 |
0.06 |
twilight |
G191B2B |
i |
0.090 ± 0.048 (B) |
vk13 |
0.53 |
0.14 |
twilight |
HD12021 |
V |
0.112 ± 0.025 (B) |
vj13 vj24 |
0.23 0.79 |
0.07 0.08 |
bad seeing, 80%moon |
HD12021 |
i |
0.112 ± 0.025 (B) |
vj13 vj15 vj24 vk09 |
0.48 0.30 0.87 0.29 |
0.11 0.11 0.11 0.11 |
bad seeing, 80%moon bad seeing |
|