Abstract

The study of astronomical objects requires the use of very high resolution instruments. Since it is difficult to build monolithic telescopes much larger than 10 meters in diameter, one can use long baseline interferometers^1,2 that combine the optical beam of several telescopes. Each of these telescopes must be of large dimensions in order to observe very faint objects. At optical wavelengths, such instruments are therefore severely limited by the atmospheric turbulence. The telescopes must be equipped with adaptive optics (AO) systems which provide a correction of the turbulence.^3-5 The work presented here is mostly extracted from Ref. [6] and gives a comparison of the signal to noise ratio (SNR) of long and short exposure visibilities in adaptive optics partial correction. It is a complement to an earlier study by G. Rousset et al.⁷

© 1995 Optical Society of America