Direct imaging: the natural choice for cophased interferometry
Proceedings of the European Interferometry Initiative Workshop organized in the context of the 20005 Joint European and National Astronomy Meeting "Distant Worlds"?
LISE group, Observatoire de Haute-Provence, France
LISE group, Observatoire de Haute-Provence, France
Abstract
Future interferometric instrumentation mainly relies on the availability of an efficient cophasing system. The transition to come from coherenced to cophased interferometry is very comparable to the one we have already lived through from speckle interferometry to adaptive optics imaging with a single dish telescope. Among the possible uses of such a cophased interferometer, global beam combination for direct imaging appears like one of the simplest and most elegant solutions. To make direct imaging possible, the hypertelescope combination scheme is definitely the most appropriate. Indeed, far from inducing field loss, as it is often reproached, a well chosen pupil densification proves to be the optimal use of the collected photons: it simply reduces the direct imaging field and makes it equal to the only field accessible to the array itself.