Abstract
GRAVITY is a new instrument to coherently combine the light of the European Southern Observatory Very Large Telescope Interferometer to form a telescope with an equivalent 130m diameter angular resolution and a collecting area of 200 m(2). The instrument comprises fiber fed integrated optics beam combination, high resolution spectroscopy, built-in beam analysis and control, near-infrared wavefront sensing, phase-tracking, dual-beam operation, and laser metrology. GRAVITY opens up to optical/infrared interferometry the techniques of phase referenced imaging and narrow angle astrometry, in many aspects following the concepts of radio interferometry. This article gives an overview of GRAVITY and reports on the performance and the first astronomical observations during commissioning in 2015/16. We demonstrate phase-tracking on stars as faint as m(K) approximate to 10 mag, phase-referenced interferometry of objects fainter than m(K) approximate to 15 mag with a limiting magnitude of m(K) approximate to 17 mag, minute long coherent integrations, a visibility accuracy of better than 0.25%, and spectro-differential phase and closure phase accuracy better than 0.5 degrees, corresponding to a differential astrometric precision of better than ten microarcseconds (as). The dual-beam astrometry, measuring the phase difference of two objects with laser metrology, is still under commissioning. First observations show residuals as low as 50 mu as when following objects over several months. We illustrate the instrument performance with the observations of archetypical objects for the different instrument modes. Examples include the Galactic center supermassive black hole and its fast orbiting star S2 for phase referenced dual-beam observations and infrared wavefront sensing, the high mass X-ray binary BP Cru and the active galactic nucleus of PDS 456 for a few mu as spectro-differential astrometry, the T Tauri star S CrA for a spectro-differential visibility analysis, xi Tel and 24 Cap for high accuracy visibility observations, and eta Car for interferometric imaging with GRAVITY.

Abstract
We present the first optical observation of the microquasar SS 433 at sub-milliarcsecond (mas) scale obtained with the GRAVITY instrument on the Very Large Telescope interferometer (VLTI). The 3.5-h exposure reveals a rich K-band spectrum dominated by hydrogen Br gamma and He i lines, as well as (red-shifted) emission lines coming from the jets. The K-band-continuum-emitting region is dominated by a marginally resolved point source (<1 mas) embedded inside a diffuse background accounting for 10% of the total flux. The jet line positions agree well with the ones expected from the jet kinematic model, an interpretation also supported by the consistent sign (i.e., negative/positive for the receding/approaching jet component) of the phase shifts observed in the lines. The significant visibility drop across the jet lines, together with the small and nearly identical phases for all baselines, point toward a jet that is off set by less than 0.5 mas from the continuum source and resolved in the direction of propagation, with a typical size of 2 mas. The jet position angle of similar to 80 degrees is consistent with the expected one at the observation date. Jet emission so close to the central binary system would suggest that line locking, if relevant to explain the amplitude and stability of the 0.26c jet velocity, operates on elements heavier than hydrogen. The Br gamma profile is broad and double peaked. It is better resolved than the continuum and the change of the phase signal sign across the line on all baselines suggests an East-West-oriented geometry similar to the jet direction and supporting a (polar) disk wind origin.

Abstract
Aims. To investigate the inner regions of protoplanetary discs, we performed near-infrared interferometric observations of the classical T Tauri binary system S CrA. Methods. We present the first VLTI-GRAVITY high spectral resolution (R similar to 4000) observations of a classical T Tauri binary, S CrA (composed of S CrAN and S CrA S and separated by similar to 1".4), combining the four 8m telescopes in dual-field mode. Results. Our observations in the near-infrared K-band continuum reveal a disc around each binary component, with similar halfflux radii of about 0.1 au at d similar to 130 pc, inclinations (i = 28 +/- 3 degrees and i = 22 +/- 6 degrees), and position angles (PA = 0 degrees +/- 6 degrees and PA = -2 degrees +/- 12 degrees), suggesting that they formed from the fragmentation of a common disc. The S CrAN spectrum shows bright He i and Br gamma line emission exhibiting inverse PCygni profiles, typically associated with infalling gas. The continuum-compensated Br gamma line visibilities of S CrAN show the presence of a compact Br gamma emitting region whose radius is about similar to 0.06 au, which is twice as big as the truncation radius. This component is mostly tracing a wind. Moreover, a slight radius change between the blue-and red-shifted Br gamma line components is marginally detected. Conclusions. The presence of an inverse PCygni profile in the He i and Br gamma lines, along with the tentative detection of a slightly larger size of the blue-shifted Br gamma line component, hint at the simultaneous presence of a wind and magnetospheric accretion in S CrA N.

Abstract
We observe the high-mass X-ray binary (HMXB) BP Cru using interferometry in the near-infrared K band with VLTI/GRAVITY. Continuum visibilities are at most partially resolved, consistent with the predicted size of the hypergiant. Differential visibility amplitude (Delta|V| similar to 5%) and phase (Delta phi similar to 2 degrees) signatures are observed across the He I 2.059 mu m and Br gamma lines, the latter seen strongly in emission, unusual for the donor star's spectral type. For a baseline B similar to 100 m, the differential phase rms similar to 0 degrees 2 corresponds to an astrometric precision of similar to 2 mu as. We generalize expressions for image centroid displacements and variances in the marginally resolved limit of interferometry to spectrally resolved data, and use them to derive model-independent properties of the emission such as its asymmetry, extension, and strong wavelength dependence. We propose geometric models based on an extended and distorted wind and/or a high-density gas stream, which has long been predicted to be present in this system. The observations show that optical interferometry is now able to resolve HMXBs at the spatial scale where accretion takes place, and therefore to probe the effects of the gravitational and radiation fields of the compact object on its environment.

Abstract
Here we present the first results from a MUSE/X-Shooter study of the jet from the classical T Tauri star TH 28. The combination of MUSE and X-Shooter enables us to take advantage of both spectro-imaging and broadband spectroscopy to comprehensively investigate the TH 28 jet. We present a MUSE spectro-image and PV plot of the Ha emission line and use flux ratios from the X-Shooter spectrum to estimate the mass accretion rate at log(?acc) = -9.4. Future work will focus on diagnostic analyses on both sets of data, including estimating the mass outflow rate (?out) and the extinction of the jet. © SAIt 2017.

Abstract
Assessing the quality of aperture synthesis maps is relevant for benchmarking image reconstruction algorithms, for the scientific exploitation of data from optical long-baseline interferometers, and for the design/upgrade of new/existing interferometric imaging facilities. Although metrics have been proposed in these contexts, no systematic study has been conducted on the selection of a robust metric for quality assessment. This article addresses the question: what is the best metric to assess the quality of a reconstructed image? It starts by considering several metrics and selecting a few based on general properties. Then, a variety of image reconstruction cases are considered. The observational scenarios are phase closure and phase referencing at the Very Large Telescope Interferometer (VLTI), for a combination of two, three, four and six telescopes. End-to-end image reconstruction is accomplished with the MIRA software, and several merit functions are put to test. It is found that convolution by an effective point spread function is required for proper image quality assessment. The effective angular resolution of the images is superior to naive expectation based on the maximum frequency sampled by the array. This is due to the prior information used in the aperture synthesis algorithm and to the nature of the objects considered. The l(1)-norm is the most robust of all considered metrics, because being linear it is less sensitive to image smoothing by high regularization levels. For the cases considered, this metric allows the implementation of automatic quality assessment of reconstructed images, with a performance similar to human selection.