Abstract

The Large Binocular Telescope Observatory comprises two 8.4 m apertures on a single mount which yield an edge-to-edge baseline of 23m offering unprecedented resolution and is the precursor to the next generation ELTs which are under development. The beams from the two apertures are separately corrected using separate wavefront sensors and adaptive secondary mirrors and are then coherently combined to produce orthogonal resolution of 23m in one axis and 8.4m in the other axis (LBTI, Hinz et al) On-sky rotation serves to fill-in part of the UV plane for the interferometric baseline.

© 2015 Optical Society of America