High resolution imaging at Palomar

Abstract

For the last two years we have embarked on a program of understanding the ultimate limits of ground-based optical imaging. We have designed and fabricated a camera specifically for high resolution imaging. This camera has now been pressed into service at the prime focus of the Hale 5 m telescope. We have concentrated on two techniques: the Non-Redundant Masking (NRM) and Weigelt's Fully Filled Aperture (FFA) method. The former is the optical analog of radio interferometry and the latter is a higher order extension of the Labeyrie autocorrelation method. As in radio Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI), both these techniques essentially measure the closure phase and, hence, true image construction is possible. We have successfully imaged binary stars and asteroids with angular resolution approaching the diffraction limit of the telescope and image quality approaching that of a typical radio VLBI map. In addition, we have carried out analytical and simulation studies to determine the ultimate limits of ground-based optical imaging, the limits of space-based interferometric imaging, and investigated the details of imaging tradeoffs of beam combination in optical interferometers.