We have developed an approach for systematically investigating the optical throughput performance of the different segments of a Michelson stellar interferometer, and applied it to the characterization of the Navy Prototype Optical Interferometer (NPOI). We report the results of the first phase of throughput measurements on NPOI, as well as some of the lessons learned. Since the current generation of ground-based optical interferometers all suffers from varying degree of throughput degradation while the dominant causes for throughput loss are expected to vary for each individual instrument, the methodologies and approaches developed here could be of general use for the quantitative characterization of the throughput performance of the different optical interferometers, a prerequisite for its ultimate improvement.

Date Published: 29 June 2006
PDF: 12 pages
Proc. SPIE 6268, Advances in Stellar Interferometry, 62683V (29 June 2006); doi: 10.1117/12.670001

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 6268:
Advances in Stellar Interferometry
John D. Monnier; Markus Schöller; William C. Danchi, Editor(s)