Palomar Testbed Interferometer
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PTI on Palomar Mountain, next to the Hale Telescope
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| Organisation | Caltech and JPL |
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| Location(s) | Palomar Mountain |
| Coordinates | Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found. |
| Wavelength | Near infrared |
| First light | 1995 |
| Telescope style | Interferometer |
| Diameter | 110 m |
| Secondary dia. | 0.4 m |
The Palomar Testbed Interferometer (PTI) was a near infrared, long-baseline stellar interferometer located at Palomar Observatory in north San Diego County. It was built by Caltech and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and was intended to serve as a testbed for developing interferometric techniques to be used at the Keck Interferometer. It began operations in 1995 and achieved routine operations in 1998, producing more than 50 refereed papers in a variety of scientific journals covering topics from high precision astrometry[1] to stellar masses,[2] stellar diameters and shapes.[3] PTI concluded operations in 2008 and has since been dismantled.[4]
PTI was notable for being equipped with a "dual-star" system, making it possible to simultaneously observe pairs of stars; this cancels some of the atmospheric effects of astronomical seeing and makes very high precision measurements possible.[citation needed]
A groundbreaking study with the Palomar Testbed Interferometer revealed that the star Altair is not spherical, but is rather flattened at the poles due to its high rate of rotation.[5]
See also
References
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External links
- Palomar Testbed Interferometer (PTI) at NASA Exoplanet Science Institute.
- Palomar Testbed Interferometer (PTI) at Caltech Astronomy.
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