AAS Meeting #193 - Austin, Texas, January 1999
Session 73. Young Stars
Display, Friday, January 8, 1999, 9:20am-6:30pm, Exhibit Hall 1

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[73.16] High-resolution Infrared Images of Dust Disks Orbiting Main Sequence Stars

M. D. Silverstone, A. J. Weinberger, E. E. Becklin, P. J. Lowrance, B. Zuckerman (UCLA), K. A. Marsh (IPAC), D. W. Koerner (U.Penn), M. W. Werner, R. J. Terrile (JPL), B. A. Smith (Hawaii), G. Schneider, M. J. Rieke, R. I. Thompson (U. of Az.)

We present mid-infrared and near-infrared images of disks around a sample of main-sequence stars with far-infrared excesses.

Thermal-infrared images with sub-arcsecond resolution were obtained at wavelengths of 12.5 and 17.9~\mum with MIRLIN, a mid-infrared camera operating at the Keck II Telescope. Extended emission is detected, as compared to PSF star observations, for seven of 14 program stars. The resolved emission implies disk radii of approximately 30 to 150 AU.

As part of the NICMOS Instrument Definition Team's investigation of the "Environments of Nearby Stars," we have also used the Hubble Space Telescope with the NICMOS coronagraph to image an overlapping sample of stars. We report here on one star, HD 141569, common to these two programs, for which a disk is observed with both instruments. The mid-infrared disk, seen in both bands, is \approx0.''75 (150 AU) in radius and probably arises from grains heated by the central star. The NICMOS image, taken in a filter centered at 1.1\mum, reveals a much larger disk extending out to \approx3'' (600 AU) from the star. The near-infrared flux is likely to be from starlight reflected off of grains in the disk. Models of the disk geometry are presented.

This work is supported in part by NASA grant NAG 5-3042, and based on observations with the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, obtained at the Space Telescope Science Institute, which is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc. under NASA contract NAS5-26555.


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