Astron. Astrophys. Suppl. Ser. 134, 173-186

The Bordeaux and Valinhos CCD meridian circles

B. Viateau^1,2 - Y. Réquième¹ - J.F. Le Campion^1,2 - P. Benevides-Soares^2,1 - R. Teixeira^2,1 - G. Montignac^1,2 - J.M. Mazurier¹ - W. Monteiro² - F. Bosq^1,2 - F. Chauvet^1,2 - J. Colin¹ - G. Daigne¹ - J.M. Desbats^1,2 - T.P. Dominici² - J.P. Périé¹ - J. Raffaelli² - M. Rapaport¹

Send offprint request: B. Viateau

1 - Observatoire de Bordeaux, UMR 5804, CNRS, BP. 89, F-33270 Floirac, France
2 - IAG-USP, Departamento de Astronomia, Caixa Postal 3386, 01060-970 São Paulo, Brazil

Received July 8; accepted July 27, 1998

Abstract:

A first CCD $512\times 512$ camera working in scan mode (declination field 14') was mounted in 1994 on the Bordeaux CCD meridian circle. After a testing period, this camera was installed on the Valinhos CCD meridian circle (near São Paulo, Brazil), as part of a collaboration between Bordeaux Observatory and the Instituto Astronomico e Geofisico of São Paulo. A second improved CCD $1024\times 1024$ camera, with a declination field of 28', was installed on the Bordeaux instrument in June 1996. The mean internal precision of a single observation is about 0.04'' in both coordinates for $9\leq V\leq 14$. In the same magnitude range, magnitudes can also be obtained with an internal precision of about 0.05 mag. Both instruments can participate efficiently in extending the Hipparcos- Tycho frame, during the next decade. Among other duties, the Bordeaux CCD meridian circle is being used since January 1997 for completing the Méridien 2000 project. The characteristics of both instruments and some results obtained with them are presented in this paper.

Key words: astrometry -- reference systems -- instrumentation: miscellaneous