We have presented a method for interferometric imaging with the Large
Binocular Telescope. The laboratory and computer experiments demonstrate that
image reconstruction from LBT interferograms can easily be performed by the
speckle masking method combined with the iterative building block method. The
experimental results show the dependence of the reconstructed
images on photon noise. The smallest simulated number of
photoevents per interferogram was 200. This photoevent number
corresponds to magnitude for two 8 m telescopes,
20 msec exposure time per interferogram, 5 nm filter bandwidth, and
10% quantum efficiency of detector plus optics. 200000
interferograms were evaluated per experiment corresponding to only
1.1 hours of data recording time for a frame rate of 50 frames per
sec. The mean photometric error of the reconstructed stars of the
star cluster is about 9.5% (for 200000
interferograms,
= 40 cm, 200 photoevents/interferogram, only
one spectral channel of 5 nm bandwidth). The simulated brightness
of the individual four stars is 15.6, 15.8, 16.4, and 17.1.
Objects of about 18th magnitude and fainter can be studied with
6 mas resolution if observing time is increased, data are
simultaneously recorded in many spectral channels, and if partial
wavefront compensation is achieved by an artificial laser guide
star system.