Optical aperture synthesis with the Anglo-Australian telescope

An optical interferometer to produce high resolution images by aperture synthesis is proposed, using the 3.9-meter Anglo-Australian telescope (AAT). A mask perforated with several widely spaced holes is placed over the telescope aperture. The light passing through these holes is made to interfere and the fringe pattern is recorded with a detector in many short exposures (about 10 ms). Data analysis consists of determining the fringe amplitudes and phases during each exposure and using self-calibration techniques to reconstruct an image. By using the techniques of pupil-plane interferometry and wavelength dispersion, the designated Masked Aperture Pupil-Plane Interference Telescope (MAPPIT) may have more sensitivity than many other interferometric imaging systems.