COAST, the
Cambridge Optical Aperture Synthesis Telescope, is a multi-element optical
astronomical interferometerAn astronomical interferometer is an array of telescopes or mirror segments acting together to probe structures with higher resolution. Astronomical interferometers are widely used for optical astronomy, infrared astronomy, submillimetre astronomy and radio astronomy. Aperture synthesis can be used...
with baselines of up to 100 metres, which uses
aperture synthesisAperture synthesis or synthesis imaging is a type of interferometry that mixes signals from a collection of telescopes to produce images having the same angular resolution as an instrument the size of the entire collection...
to observe stars with angular resolution as high as one thousandth of one arcsecond (producing images with much higher resolution than can be obtained using individual telescopes such as the
Hubble Space TelescopeThe Hubble Space Telescope is a space telescope that was carried into orbit by the space shuttle in April 1990. It is named after the American astronomer Edwin Hubble. Although not the first space telescope, the Hubble is one of the largest and most versatile, and is well-known as both a vital...
). The principal limitation is that COAST can only image bright
starA star is a massive, luminous ball of plasma that is held together by gravity. The nearest star to Earth is the Sun, which is the source of most of the energy on Earth. Other stars are visible in the night sky, when they are not outshone by the Sun...
s.
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COAST, the
Cambridge Optical Aperture Synthesis Telescope, is a multi-element optical
astronomical interferometerAn astronomical interferometer is an array of telescopes or mirror segments acting together to probe structures with higher resolution. Astronomical interferometers are widely used for optical astronomy, infrared astronomy, submillimetre astronomy and radio astronomy. Aperture synthesis can be used...
with baselines of up to 100 metres, which uses
aperture synthesisAperture synthesis or synthesis imaging is a type of interferometry that mixes signals from a collection of telescopes to produce images having the same angular resolution as an instrument the size of the entire collection...
to observe stars with angular resolution as high as one thousandth of one arcsecond (producing images with much higher resolution than can be obtained using individual telescopes such as the
Hubble Space TelescopeThe Hubble Space Telescope is a space telescope that was carried into orbit by the space shuttle in April 1990. It is named after the American astronomer Edwin Hubble. Although not the first space telescope, the Hubble is one of the largest and most versatile, and is well-known as both a vital...
). The principal limitation is that COAST can only image bright
starA star is a massive, luminous ball of plasma that is held together by gravity. The nearest star to Earth is the Sun, which is the source of most of the energy on Earth. Other stars are visible in the night sky, when they are not outshone by the Sun...
s. COAST was the first long-baseline interferometer to obtain high-resolution images of the surfaces of stars other than our sun (although the surfaces of other stars had previously been imaged at lower resolution using
Aperture Masking InterferometryAperture Masking Interferometry is a form of speckle interferometry, allowing diffraction limited imaging from ground-based telescopes. This technique allows ground based telescopes to reach the maximum possible resolution, allowing ground-based telescopes with large diameters to produce far...
on the
William Herschel TelescopeThe William Herschel Telescope or WHT was first conceived in the late 1960s, when the Anglo-Australian Observatory was being designed. The British astronomical community saw the need for telescopes of comparable power in the Northern Hemisphere. Planning began in 1974, but by 1979 the project was...
).
The COAST array was conceived by
John E. BaldwinJohn Evan Baldwin has worked at the Cavendish Astrophysics Group since 1954. He played a pivotal role in the development of interferometry in Radio Astronomy, and later astronomical optical interferometry and lucky imaging...
, and is operated by the
Cavendish Astrophysics GroupThe Cavendish Astrophysics Group is based at the Cavendish Laboratory at the University of Cambridge. The group operates all of the telescopes at the Mullard Radio Astronomy Observatory except for the 32m MERLIN telescope, which is operated by Jodrell Bank.The group is the second largest of three...
. It is situated at the
Mullard Radio Astronomy ObservatoryMullard Radio Astronomy Observatory is home to a number of large aperture synthesis radio telescopes, including the One-Mile Telescope, 5-km Ryle Telescope, and the Arcminute Microkelvin Imager...
in
CambridgeshireCambridgeshire is a county in England, bordering Lincolnshire to the north, Norfolk to the northeast, Suffolk to the east, Essex and Hertfordshire to the south, and Bedfordshire and Northamptonshire to the west...
,
EnglandEngland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the North Sea to the east, with the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
.
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