First images on the sky from a hyper telescope

Free access article

Issue		Astron. Astrophys. Suppl. Ser. Volume 147, Number 2, December I 2000


Page(s)		285 - 290
DOI		http://dx.doi.org/10.1051/aas:2000302

DOI: 10.1051/aas:2000302

Astron. Astrophys. Suppl. Ser. 147, 285-290

E. Pedretti ^1,2 - A. Labeyrie ^1,2 - L. Arnold ² - N. Thureau ³ - O. Lardiere ² - A. Boccaletti ^1,4 - P. Riaud ^2,4

Send offprint request: E. Pedretti,
e-mail: pedretti@obs-hp.fr

1 - Collège de France, 11 place Marcelin Berthelot, F-75231 Paris Cedex 05, France
2 - Observatoire de Haute Provence, CNRS, F-04870 Saint Michel l'Observatoire, France
3 - Observatoire de la Côte d'Azur, Département Fresnel, ISA-GI2T, F-06108 Saint Vallier de Thiey, France
4 - DESPA, Observatoire de Paris-Meudon, 5 place J. Janssen, F-92195 Meudon, France

Received April 28; accepted September 8, 2000

Abstract:

We show star images obtained with a miniature ``densified pupil imaging interferometer'' also called a hyper-telescope. The formation of such images violates a ``golden rule of imaging interferometers'' which appeared to forbid the use of interferometric arrangements differing from a Fizeau interferometer. These produce useless images when the sub-apertures spacing is much wider than their size, owing to diffraction through the sub-apertures. The hyper-telescope arrangement solves these problems opening the way towards multi-kilometer imaging arrays in space. We experimentally obtain an intensity gain of $24\pm 3\times$ when a densified-pupil interferometer is compared to an equivalent Fizeau-type interferometer and show images of the double star $\alpha$ Gem. The initial results presented confirm the possibility of directly obtaining high resolution and high dynamic range images in the recombined focal plane of a large interferometer if enough elements are used.

Key words: interferometers -- double star images -- laboratory images -- pupil densification

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