Abstract

Interest in long baseline stellar interferometers has been growing rapidly in recent years. Our current instrument, the third of a series of interferometers, has been operational for 2 years making astrometric and stellar diameter measurements with baselines of 8-12 m. initially, the principal technical problem was phasing the interferometer or equalizing the optical path length in the two arms of the interferometer. At present, the procedure is totally automated, and after the pointing system has acquired the star, the search for stellar fringes usually takes 10 s or less.

© 1988 Optical Society of America