New concept for wide-field imaging

Iciar Montilla; Eric J. Bakker; Silvania F. Pereira; Joseph J. M. Braat

doi:10.1117/12.457012

21 February 2003 New concept for wide-field imaging

Iciar Montilla, Eric J. Bakker, Silvania F. Pereira, Joseph J. M. Braat

Proceedings Volume 4838, Interferometry for Optical Astronomy II; (2003) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.457012
Event: Astronomical Telescopes and Instrumentation, 2002, Waikoloa, Hawai'i, United States

Abstract

Wide Field Imaging is a natural extension to single boresight interferometry with an optical/infrared telescope array. It is an important tool to obtain interferometric data of extended objects and for astrometric measurements. Visibilities from many points on the sky can be obtained in one shot saving observation time. In this paper we introduce a new technique, the "staircase mirror" concept which offers potential advantages with respect to existing techniques to perform wide field of view operation on an optical stellar interferometer. This new concept is based on a pupil plane recombination scheme with an automatic field-dependent path length compensation in the intermediate image field of each array single telescope. The pathlength compensation is obtained via a staircase mirror whose position and step depth are a function of the pointing direction and the baseline vector of each telescope. The mirror must be actuated to follow the changes of the baseline projected on the entrance pupil of the telescope. We have calculated the differential delay as a function of the field angle, studied and designed an experimental setup to show the applicability of the method and performed simulations for the Very Large Telescope Interferometer.

Citation Download Citation

Iciar Montilla, Eric J. Bakker, Silvania F. Pereira, and Joseph J. M. Braat "New concept for wide-field imaging", Proc. SPIE 4838, Interferometry for Optical Astronomy II, (21 February 2003); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.457012

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