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2 votes
1 answer
261 views

Will the Magdalena Ridge Optical Interferometer be able to image extended objects like the surface of the Moon?

Inspired by several questions: When will a moon landing site be visible via telescope? Could the E.H.T. produce an image of the human artifacts on the moon? Picture of equipment left on the Moon? ...
uhoh's user avatar
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3 votes
1 answer
257 views

Has optical interferometry been done at radio frequency using heterodyning with a laser in a nonlinear material?

If one collects narrow band optical emission from a large telescope with frequency $f_1$ and mixes it in a nonlinear crystal with laser light of a nearby frequency $f_2$, it would produce two new ...
uhoh's user avatar
  • 30.7k
4 votes
0 answers
137 views

How did Michelson measure the diameters of jupiter's moons using optical interferometry?

In Betelgeuse: How its Diameter was measured (Chant, C. A., Journal of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada, Vol. 15, p.133, Bibliographic Code: 1921JRASC..15..133C) the author says: The paper in ...
uhoh's user avatar
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6 votes
1 answer
156 views

Reference request (explaining) how optical correlators combine light from multiple telescopes to produce ultra-high resolution interferometric images?

This is a reference or resource-request because it may be too challenging to explain in an answer post, but if you'd like to attempt a short summary as well, that will be great! I have a basic ...
uhoh's user avatar
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11 votes
1 answer
610 views

Was GRAVITY built to look at one star?

GRAVITY (shown below) is a interferometric combiner of near infrared light from four very large telescopes called The Very Large Telescope in order to make careful astrometric measurements near the ...
uhoh's user avatar
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4 votes
1 answer
136 views

Have interference effects (in space) ever been observed by a single instrument, as opposed to interferometry?

Not asking about: Interferometry can be done with multiple instruments who's light paths or signals are combined interferometrically, or even between different parts of a single aperture, e.g. What ...
uhoh's user avatar
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2 votes
1 answer
119 views

What does a narrow-band "point spread function" look like for long exposures from the VLT's large interferometric aperture?

In interferometric radio astronomy UV plots are the first step in understanding what a point spread function (PSF) will look like for a given location in the sky observed over a period of time. The ...
uhoh's user avatar
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1 vote
1 answer
302 views

Can the interferometer called "Gravity" measure "a few centimeters on the Moon"?

Phys.org's Very Large Telescope sees star dance around supermassive black hole, proves Einstein right links to several ESO videos, including Interview with Reinhard Genzel (in English). After ...
uhoh's user avatar
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13 votes
2 answers
258 views

Why hasn't VLBI been used to try and image giant exoplanets?

A Jupiter-sized object at 10 pc subtends an angle of 0.0001 arcseconds (100 micro-arcsec) at the Earth. The Event Horizon Telescope interferometry network is capable of a (demonstrated) angular ...
ProfRob's user avatar
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3 votes
1 answer
96 views

What are the challenges for the building and data analysis of the CHIME telescope?

The Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment (CHIME) has discovered the second repeated fast radio burst recently. However, its structure is simple apparently. I wonder why we did not build a ...
questionhang's user avatar
  • 3,137
2 votes
1 answer
128 views

How do they know the non-uniformities seen on the disk of π¹ Gru are real and not artifacts?

@RobJeffries' answer to What is this web on the surface of the Sun? explains why convection cells on some other stars can be far larger than they are on our Sun and includes a near-infrared VLT ...
uhoh's user avatar
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