5 Conclusion

These observations have shown that the association of the speckle camera of Observatoire Midi-Pyrénées, the ICCD detector of Université de Nice - Sophia Antipolis, and the reduction procedure we have been developing in the last few years is well adapted to binaries study. Despite poor atmospheric conditions, we have obtained a promising list of measurements and started to reach a productive stage in the field of binary stars. In the future we plan to make systematic observations of close double stars resolved by the TBL with unknown, old or uncertain orbits (grade 3 or more in the catalogue Heintz-Worley, Worley & Heintz 1983). We plan also to observe binaries with close periastron for which observations near the periastron are missing or uncertain. Complementary observations with the speckle camera will also be done with BVR imaging to measure the color indices (we could even obtain the spectra in some favorable cases) of the individual stars for which masses have been determined, in order to derive their spectral class.

Acknowledgements

The authors whish to thank the technical staff of the TBL for assistance during the observations; Michel Aurière (Observatoire Midi-Pyrénées) for help in the preparation of the missions and the Institut National des Sciences de l'Univers for financial support. Thanks are also due to A.A. Tokovinin for help in selecting multiple stars and to Washington Naval Observatory for giving the lists of measurements. This work made use of the SIMBAD astronomical database operated at CDS, Strasbourg, France, and of the CHARA (Georgia State University, Atlanta, Georgia, U.S.A.) 3rd catalogue of interferometric measurements of binary stars.