  Context: A turbulent atmosphere causes atmospheric piston variations leading
to rapid changes in the optical path difference of an interferometer, which
causes correlated flux losses. This leads to decreased sensitivity and accuracy
in the correlated flux measurement. Aims: To stabilize the N band
interferometric signal in MIDI (MID-infrared Interferometric instrument), we
use an external fringe tracker working in K band, the so-called FSU-A (fringe
sensor unit) of the PRIMA (Phase-Referenced Imaging and Micro-arcsecond
Astrometry) facility at VLTI. We present measurements obtained using the newly
commissioned and publicly offered MIDI+FSU-A mode. A first characterization of
the fringe-tracking performance and resulting gains in the N band are
presented. In addition, we demonstrate the possibility of using the FSU-A to
measure visibilities in the K band. Methods: We analyzed FSU-A fringe track
data of 43 individual observations covering different baselines and object K
band magnitudes with respect to the fringe-tracking performance. The N band
group delay and phase delay values could be predicted by computing the relative
change in the differential water vapor column density from FSU-A data.
Visibility measurements in the K band were carried out using a scanning mode of
the FSU-A. Results: Using the FSU-A K band group delay and phase delay
measurements, we were able to predict the corresponding N band values with high
accuracy with residuals of less than 1 micrometer. This allows the coherent
integration of the MIDI fringes of faint or resolved N band targets,
respectively. With that method we could decrease the detection limit of
correlated fluxes of MIDI down to 0.5 Jy (vs. 5 Jy without FSU-A) and 0.05 Jy
(vs. 0.2 Jy without FSU-A) using the ATs and UTs, respectively. The K band
visibilities could be measured with a precision down to ~2%.

Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics;Solar and Stellar Astrophysics