Combining the two 8.4 m telescopes of the Large Binocular Telescope ¹(LBT) offers the unique possibility to achieve diffraction limited images with 23 m spatial resolution. This requires an interferometric superposition of the two telescope beams in a Fizeau-type interferometer. LINC-NIRVANA delivers a 10 arcsec x 10 arcsec panoramic field of view with 5 mas pixel size. In addition to delivering diffraction limited, single-telescope images, the optics have several additional constraints imposed by interferometric operation. In this paper, we describe the evolution of the optical design and how the individual optical subsystems were developed in parallel to provide optimal combined performance. We also present an alignment strategy to setup the optics and to achieve zero optical path difference.

Date Published: 27 June 2006
PDF: 8 pages
Proc. SPIE 6269, Ground-based and Airborne Instrumentation for Astronomy, 62690D (27 June 2006); doi: 10.1117/12.671569

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 6269:
Ground-based and Airborne Instrumentation for Astronomy
Ian S. McLean; Masanori Iye, Editor(s)