CHARA-Array

The CHARA array Engl. CHARA Array is an optical astronomical interferometer, conducted by The Center for High Angular Resolution Astronomy ( CHARA ) at Georgia State University ( GSU ). It is located at the Mount Wilson Observatory, near Los Angeles, California.

The interferometer consists of six telescopes, each with a meter in diameter, which are arranged along three axes. The telescopes can thereby be up to 330 meters apart. The light received by the telescope is then passed through tubes and evacuated optically superimposed. For this superposition correct phase, the resulting group delay differences of the star's light to compensate for the individual telescopes in a 100 meter long building with movable mirrors. The array achieves an angular resolution of 0.0005 arc seconds in the infrared. Scientific observations began in 2002, from 2005 image results were obtained routinely. The first image of a star's surface, the star Altair, was published in 2007.