Bibcode
Mariotti, J.-M.; Monin, J.-L.; Ghez, P.; Perrier, C.; Zadrozny, A.
Bibliographical reference
Astronomy and Astrophysics (ISSN 0004-6361), vol. 255, no. 1-2, p. 462-476.
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2
1992
Citations
7
Refereed citations
5
Description
We describe an experiment aimed at diffraction-limited imaging of
astronomical sources in the 2-5/micron range. It is based on a rotation
shearing interferometer that extracts the complex degree of coherence of
the wavefront directly in the pupil plane. Interference fringes are
produced by a Michelson interferometer in the image of the telescope
pupil. They are scanned through the zero optical path difference faster
than the deformations produced by atmospheric turbulence. The 2D
interferograms are recorded with an infrared camera located at the
recombined pupil image. For each spatial frequency, the modulus, and the
phase of the Fourier transform of the object intensity distribution are
derived from these interferograms. The main advantage of this technique
is its high constant transfer function that makes it independent of
seeing variations and instrumental aberrations. We describe the
experimental set-up and discuss some model-based simulation results
which illustrate the operation of the interferometer. We present
astronomical data and derive the performances of rotation shearing
interferometry for diffraction-limited observations of infrared
astronomical objects.