Observatoire Midi-Pyrénées, 14, Avenue E. Belin, F-31400 Toulouse, France.
J.-L. Prieur, L. Koechlin, G. Gallou and C. Lucuix.
PISCO is a speckle camera designed and built at Observatoire Midi-Pyrénées in the early 1990's. It is a focal instrument that was used between 1993 and 1998 at the 2-meter Bernard Lyot Telescope of Pic du Midi observatory. It was installed in November 2003 on the 1-meter Zeiss telescope of Brera Observatory in Merate (Italy), and has been in regular use since that time (in operation nearly every clear night). It can be set in various operating modes: full pupil imaging, masked-pupil imaging, spectroscopy, wave-front sensor and stellar coronagraphy, hence its name "PISCO" ("Pupil Interferometry Speckle COronagraph"). Restored images of double and triple stars have demonstrated its capabilities in providing close to diffraction limited images (0"06 in V at the TBL, 0"13 in R in Merate).
Warning: this document was written in 1998 and has not been really updated yet.
(Version française dans Présentation du tavelographe PISCO)