OHANA, the AMBER/VLTI Snapshot Survey

TL;DR

The OHANA survey uses VLTI's AMBER instrument to quickly observe early-type stars, providing insights into their mass-loss processes by leveraging unused observing time for high-resolution interferometric measurements.

Contribution

It introduces a novel snapshot survey approach utilizing backup VLTI time to study stellar mass-loss with high spectral and spatial resolution.

Findings

Characterized mass-loss in early-type stars.

Demonstrated effective use of backup observing time.

Provided high-resolution interferometric data.

Abstract

We report on the OHANA interferometric snapshot survey, carried out by the VLTI group at the Paranal observatory. It makes use of observing time not useful for any other scheduled scientific or technical tasks in the sense of a backup programme, to characterize the mass-loss for early-type stars. The survey employs the combination of AMBER's high spectral and spatial resolution. The spatially unresolved central object provides a reference frame for the fringe properties observed in the light of the continuum.