Astronomy on shortest timescales: observations and results from the optical photo-polarimeter OPTIMA

by Gottfried Kanbach (MPE Garching)

Thursday 31 Mar 2011, 13:00 → 14:00 Europe/Stockholm

A5:1003

Astrophysical phenomena on timescales of seconds and less are typically associated with non-thermal processes around compact stars. Accretion, nuclear activities, or energetic particles on white dwarves, neutron stars or black holes can generate broad spectra which are the domain of multi-wavelength observations. I present our high-time resolution optical photo-polarimeter OPTIMA and summarize highlights of astronomical observations such as very detailed optical polarimetry of the Crab pulsar, X-ray - optical correlations in a microquasar, the discovery of a potential optical magnetar, and the detection of planets around a cataclysmic variable binary.