The CHARA Array is an astronomicaloptical interferometer operated by The Center for High Angular Resolution Astronomy (CHARA) at Georgia State University. CHARA is the World's highest angular resolution telescope at infrared wavelengths. The array will eventually have six 1-metre diameter telescopes, making it one of the most powerful imaging interferometers in the world. Astronomy, which etymologically means law of the stars, (from Greek: αστρονομία = άστρον + νόμος) is a science involving the observation and explanation of events occurring outside Earth and its atmosphere. ... Optical interferometry is a technique of interferometry combining light from multiple sources in an optical instrument in order to make various precise measurements. ...
External links
CHARA website
First 4-Telescope Fringes at the CHARA Array
References
First Results from the CHARA Array. III. Oblateness, Rotational Velocity and Gravity Darkening of Alderamin
Related pages
Similar imaging interferometers include COAST, NPOI and more recently VLTI/AMBER and IOTA. The ten telescope MRO interferometer will come online in a few years. A complete list of interferometers can be seen here COAST. the Cambridge Optical Aperture Synthesis Telescope, is a multi-element optical interferometer with baselines of up to 100 metres, designed to observe stars with angular resolution as high as one thousandth of one arcsecond (much higher resolution than can be obtained with individual telescopes such as the Hubble Space... The Navy Prototype Optical Interferometer (NPOI) is an interferometer operated by the US Naval Observatory, the Naval Research Laboratory and The Lowell Observatory. ... The four telescopes of the European Southern Observatory Paranal site. ... IOTA began with an agreement in 1988 among five Institutions, the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, Harvard University, the University of Massachusetts, the University of Wyoming, and MIT/Lincoln Laboratory, to build a two-telescope stellar interferometer for the purpose of making fundamental astrophysical observations, and also as a prototype instrument on... The Magdalena Ridge Observatory Interferometer will be an optical array composed of ten telescopes, each approximately 1. ... Current Performance of Ground-Based Interferometers Here is a list of currently existing astronomical interferometers, and some parameters describing their performance. ...
The CHARAarray, located atop Mt. Wilson in southern California, is among a handful of new "super" instruments composed of multiple telescopes optically linked to function as a single telescope of enormous size.
A precise combination of the light from the individual telescopes allows the CHARAarray to behave as if it were a single telescope with a mirror 330 meters across.
The CHARAarray was constructed with funding from the National Science Foundation, Georgia State, the W. Keck Foundation, and the David and Lucile Packard Foundation.
CHARA scientists say they'll be able to see things with 300,000 times the resolution of the human eye and more than 50 times better than the Hubble Space Telescope, at least for bright objects.
CHARA is expected to allow astronomers to measure and weigh stars, including pairs of stars known as binaries, and calculate distances to them with a precision not previously possible.
On Thursday, Sept. 20, a team of CHARA scientists led by Theo ten Brummelaar succeeded in detecting "interference fringes" from starlight collected by the two most-separated telescopes of the array.
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