Near‐infrared adaptive optics observations of the Galactic Center with NAOS/CONICA (ESO) and GriF (CFHT)

We report results obtained with GriF, an infrared 3‐D spectrograph coupled to the CFHT adaptive optics system PUEO, and NAOS/CONICA, the ESO VLT adaptive optics system and its associated near‐infrared camera. Observations with GriF aimed at surveying, for the first time at the diffraction limit, the so‐called “He I stars”, currently identified as hot massive stars in transition between the blue supergiant and the Wolf‐Rayet phases. NAOS/CONICA has delivered the first thermal infrared images of the Galactic Center region with a spatial resolution down to 0.1″ Based on the Science Verification observations of NAOS/CONICA, we discuss here the photometry of S2, the closest star to Sgr A*, the discovery of a new bow‐shock star and the putative detection of sources gravitationally amplified by Sgr A*.