The primary results of our study are the two images of Capella displayed in Fig. 2. These were reconstructed from the measured visibility amplitudes and closure phases using 10 iterations of self-calibration within the Caltech VLBI mapping package. In each case, the initial starting model was a circularly symmetric Gaussian. Both maps clearly resolve the 50 mas binary, and together show the rapid change of the system over the 15 day interval between observations. Importantly, neither image shows any evidence of a spurious symmetric counter-companion, as would have been expected if the Fourier phase data had been unreliable.
North is to the top and East to the left.
The 20mas restoring beam is shown in the bottom left of each panel. Note that because of the uv plane coverage, the image resolution is lower in PA 53 degrees than along the perpendicular direction The most recent study of the Capella system relevant to the observations reported here is that of Hummel et al. 4 shows the predicted positions, based on these orbital elements, together with our measurements. These maps are entirely consistent with the orbital predictions, but do not yet have small enough errors to constrain the orbital elements in any new sense. Longer baselines, and an improved mapping algorithm that incorporates corrections for orbital motion during the observations, should reduce these errors significantly.