Large Binocular Telescope Interferometer

Piero Salinari

doi:10.1117/12.269083

21 March 1997 Large Binocular Telescope Interferometer

Piero Salinari

Proceedings Volume 2871, Optical Telescopes of Today and Tomorrow; (1997) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.269083
Event: Optical Telescopes of Today and Tomorrow, 1996, Landskrona/Hven, Sweden

Abstract

Due to the small separation (6 m) between its two 8.4 m mirrors and to the fact that they are on a common mount, the LBT interferometer operates in a way that is very different from other large telescope interferometers and more similar to that of a telescope with an elongated pupil. Important features of this optical configuration are the simple resulting PSF, the wide coherent field, the high optical efficiency and the low emissivity of the combined focus. In order to exploit fully these characteristics the telescope was designed in a way that makes possible the use of an advanced adaptive optics system, based on adaptive secondary mirrors and artificial reference stars. This AO system is presently being developed and the first results obtained with a laboratory prototype of the adaptive secondary mirror are very encouraging. Optics for beam combination that provides a coherent field larger than the isoplanatic field has been designed for various wavelengths between visible and mid IR. The entire system was evaluated more in detail in the near IR range, consider to be of the highest priority because in this range LBT should be capable of achieving at the same time an extremely high sensitivity and an angular resolution of about 0.01 arcsec.

Citation Download Citation

Piero Salinari "Large Binocular Telescope Interferometer", Proc. SPIE 2871, Optical Telescopes of Today and Tomorrow, (21 March 1997); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.269083

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