2 X telescopes to cancel light

Watching a very interesting program last night about the search for planets and a new observing platform they are building has 2 telescope which linked together add the peaks and troffs of a stars light and cancel it out.

This allows them to see the far fainter light from the planets. Very cool.

Just got me thinking would this be possible/useful in amature astronomy? Anyone know if its ever been done/what uses it would have?

Watching a very interesting program last night about the search for planets and a new observing platform they are building has 2 telescope which linked together add the peaks and troffs of a stars light and cancel it out.

This allows them to see the far fainter light from the planets. Very cool.

Just got me thinking would this be possible/useful in amature astronomy? Anyone know if its ever been done/what uses it would have?

As I understand it the complexity of such interferometry is still out of reach for amateurs. I'd say we have a few decades to wait till such technology becomes available to amateurs. This is exceptionally cutting-edge stuff!

Bart.

Isnt the twin Kecks in Hawaii doing this sort of work, this is light years beyond what any of us here can do.

The European Southern Observatory (ESO) have 8 scopes in Chile - four 8.2m and four 1.2m. At least some of the scopes have adaptive optics.

The system is constructed to allow interferometry - I think ESO can connect four of the 'scopes in an array and get down to mag 30.

But I fear the technology of connected even two scopes would be too costly for amateurs for many years to come.

Dave

I didn't see the program but I think it is the Large Binocular Telescope. Light from both parts of the telescope will be combined in an interferometer to yield an image equivalent to a single much larger mirror. What you will get is an increase in resolving power rather than a huge gain in light gathering power. Keck1&2 operate in the same way but can also be pointed at separate targets. The European Sothern Observatory has four very big scopes that are at present being integrated in a similar fasion giving an effective aperture of something like a couple of hundred metres!

One of the British universities set up a small scale optical interferometer a few years ago as a test-bed (situated in an old WW2 RAF bunker! - lots of concrete = very solid and vibration proof.) But is it do-able by an amateur? Weeeell... Interferometers are becoming the testing aperatus of choice for the descerning (read: hyper-anal) ATM mirror maker, but here you are combining two light-paths from only a single mirror. Setting up an interferometer is ticklish in the extreme but quite do-able. Combining the light paths (to continuously interfere constructively) of two widely separated mirrors (even if they are bolted down to the same optical bench) is orders of magnitude more difficult. One of the easier problems to overcome is the thermal expansion and contraction of the optical table where the light paths are combined... and even that ain't trivial!

So, yes it's possible by an amateur... but not very practical!

Sorry if this bursts a bubble,

Phil.

Interferometric Bino-telescopes will be standard fare for Amateur atronomers in 20 years.

Probably a lot sooner.

(You can buy a sub-1000 Euro computerised scope nowadays which could not have been got for tens of millions just 20 years ago.)

Peter.