Instrument Information
IDENTIFIER urn:nasa:pds:context:instrument:asiago.copernico1m82.afosc::1.1
NAME AFOSC POLARIMETER
TYPE POLARIMETER
DESCRIPTION The Asiago Faint Object Spectrographic Camera (AFOSC) Polarimeter consists of adouble Wollaston prism which splits the incoming light into four polarized beams at0, 45, 90, and 135 degrees, separated by 20 arcsec. These four beams are sufficientto determine the Stokes parameters I, Q, and U simultaneously with a single exposure. The CCD has 1024x1024 pixels (the pixel size is 24 microns), providing a total fieldof view of 18.14x18.14 arcmin, with a pixel scale of 0.473 arsec/pixel. The inputfield has been masked at the telescope focal plane by a field selective mask to avoidthe overlap of the final images on the CCD detector. The four output beams emerge collimated from the double Wollaston prism and are thenfocused on the CCD detector by the focal camera of AFOSC. The final image is formedby four strips from which the I, Q, and U parameters can be extracted. From analysisof several polarized and unpolarized standard stars, it is seen that the instrumentalpolarization is fairly constant and always below 0.4 percent, while the systematicerrors in the position angle are below 1.5 degrees.
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REFERENCES Desidera, S., E. Giro, U. Munari, Y.S. Efimov, A. Henden, A. Benetti, T. Tomov, A.Bianchini, and C. Pernechele, Polarimetric evolution of V838 Monocerotis, Astron.Astrophys. 414, 591-600, 2004.

Pernechele, C., E. Giro, and D. Fantinel, Device for optical linear polarizationmeasurements with a single exposure, Proc. SPIE 4843, 156-163, 2003.