Many foundamental astronomical problems need much higher resolution than is afforded by atmospheric seeing or the differaction limit of even the largest telescope being planed. The only way to meet these demands is by a distrbuted array of telescopes similar to those used in radio astronomy, or the long baseline stellar interferometry. China is planning to build a small aperture long baseline stellar optical interferometer for three purposes. One purpose is to clear up some problens before building a large and expensive interferometer. The second is to measure angular diameter of star and angular distance of double stars. The third is to modify it for astrometry use in the future. In this paper, the design tolerance and specifications of the interferometer are discussed based on the astronomical requiements.

Date Published: 1 November 1990
PDF: 10 pages
Proc. SPIE 1334, Current Developments in Optical Engineering IV, (1 November 1990); doi: 10.1117/12.22843

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 1334:
Current Developments in Optical Engineering IV
Robert E. Fischer; Warren J. Smith, Editor(s)