CHARA Interferometer
 |
CHARA, The Center for High Angular Resolution Astronomy at Georgia State University, is one of the newest projects underway at Mount Wilson Observatory. When completed, it will be the largest optical interferometric array ever built. The aerial photograph of Mount Wilson shown above has been altered to show the location of the CHARA facility and the telescope array.
The array will consist of (at first) a Y-shaped arrangement of five 1-meter telescope within a 400-meter radius. The resolution in visible light will be 0.2 milli-arcseconds (0.000000055 degrees), enough to resolve features one foot across on the Moon (or, over 100 times the resolving power of the Hubble Space Telescope). In essence, the light combined from the five smaller telescopes will act like a telescope 400 meters in diameter. This will have a broad scientific impact on astonomy as it will enable scientists unprecidented opportunities to make direct measurements of objects for which information has previously only been inferred from other means. These will include:
- features on other stars similar to spots and flares on the Sun
- matter streaming between close pairs of stars
- expanding shells blown away by exploding stars
- stars condensing from primordial gas and dust
- stars swarming around super-massive black holes in galactic nuclei
- planets in other solar systems
 |
Furture plans include extending the number of telescopes in the array and the possibility of occasionally incorporating the 100-inch and 60-inch telescopes into the array for special projects.
 |
 |
This concludes the Virtual Tour of the Observatory. Exit
Topics
The
CHARA Project
Current Status
Control Panel
 |
Last updated: