Michelson Interferometry with the Keck I Telescope

By P. Tuthill, J. Monnier, W. Danchi, E. Wishnow, C. Haniff. 2000

213 citations recorded by the source corpus.

We report the first use of Michelson interferometry on the Keck I telescope for diffraction‐limited imaging in the near‐infrared JHKL bands. By using an aperture mask located close to the f/25 secondary, the 10 m Keck primary mirror was transformed into a separate‐element, multiple‐aperture interferometer. This has allowed diffraction‐limited imaging of a large number of bright astrophysical targets, including the geometrically complex dust envelopes around a number of evolved stars. The successful restoration of these images, with dynamic ranges in excess of 200∶1, highlights the significant capabilities of sparse aperture imaging as compared with more conventional filled‐pupil speckle imaging for the class of bright targets considered here. In particular, the enhancement of the signal‐to‐noise ratio of the Fourier data, precipitated by the reduction in atmospheric noise, allows high‐fidelity imaging of complex sources with small numbers of short‐exposure images relative to speckle. Multiepoch measurements confirm the reliability of this imaging technique, and our whole data set provides a powerful demonstration of the capabilities of aperture‐masking methods when utilized with the current generation of large‐aperture telescopes. The relationship between these new results and recent advances in interferometry and adaptive optics is briefly discussed.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Atomic and Molecular Physics, and Optics

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/5702b7cc3513ee57fda0cbdd319ff667ae1ac6ea

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Astronomy and Astrophysics

1. Michael C. Liu
2. T. Dupuy
3. A. Kraus
4. Michael J. Ireland
5. K. Luhman
6. Kelle Cruz
7. A. Mann
8. L. Hillenbrand

In Atomic and Molecular Physics, and Optics

1. Michael J. Ireland
2. A. Kraus
3. Michael C. Liu
4. T. Dupuy
5. A. Burgasser
6. Kelle Cruz
7. F. Martinache
8. A. Mann

Citations in the corpus

• THE IMPACT OF STELLAR MULTIPLICITY ON PLANETARY SYSTEMS. I. THE RUINOUS INFLUENCE OF CLOSE BINARY COMPANIONS (2016, background): “…benefits and limitations of aperture masking, as well as typical observing strategies, can be found in Kraus et al. (2008) and in Readhead et al. (1988), Nakajima et al. (1989), Tuthill et al. (2000), Tuthill et al. (2006), Lloyd et al. (2006), Martinache et al. (2007), and Ireland et al. (2008).”
• LkCa 15: A YOUNG EXOPLANET CAUGHT AT FORMATION? (2011, methodology): “The technique of non-redundant aperture masking (NRM) has been well-established as a means of achieving the full diffraction limit of a single telescope (Nakajima et al. 1989; Tuthill et al. 2000, 2006).”
• The Disk Around CoKu Tauri/4: Circumbinary, Not Transitional (2008, methodology): “Aperturemasking interferometry (e.g. Tuthill et al. 2000) is a well established technique for achieving the full diffraction limit of a single telescope, recently applied to observations behind adaptive optics systems (e.g. Lloyd et al. 2006; Kraus et al. 2008).”
• Subtle Signatures of Multiplicity in Late-type Dwarf Spectra: The Unresolved M8.5 + T5 Binary 2MASS J03202839–0446358 (2008, background): “This technique has a long history of achieving the full diffraction limit of a telescope (e.g. Michelson 1920; Baldwin et al. 1986; Nakajima et al. 1989; Tuthill et al. 2000) and has been recently applied to natural guide star AO observations at Keck (Ireland et al. 2008; Kraus et al. 2008).”
• MAPPING THE SHORES OF THE BROWN DWARF DESERT. II. MULTIPLE STAR FORMATION IN TAURUS–AURIGA (2011, methodology): “Observations The technique of non-redundant aperture masking has been well-established as a means of achieving the full diffraction limit of a single telescope (e.g. Nakajima et al. 1989; Tuthill et al. 2000, 2006).”
• The Inner Regions of Protoplanetary Disks (2010, methodology): “The aperture masking technique uses a single telescope, in this case the Keck telescope (Tuthill et al., 2000), and puts a mask in the optical beam to allow light from only a partial set of sub-apertures to interfere at the camera focal plane.”