Aperture synthesis

Aperture synthesis or synthesis imaging is a type of interferometry that mixes signals from a collection of telescopes to produce images having the same angular resolution as an instrument the size of the entire collection.[1][2][3] At each separation and orientation, the lobe-pattern of the interferometer produces an output which is one component of the Fourier transform of the spatial distribution of the brightness of the observed object. The image (or "map") of the source is produced from these measurements. Astronomical interferometers are commonly used for high-resolution optical, infrared, submillimetre and radio astronomy observations. For example, the Event Horizon Telescope project derived the first image of a black hole using aperture synthesis.[4]

  1. ^ R. C. Jennison (1958). "A Phase Sensitive Interferometer Technique for the Measurement of the Fourier Transforms of Spatial Brightness Distributions of Small Angular Extent". Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. 119 (3): 276–284. Bibcode:1958MNRAS.118..276J. doi:10.1093/mnras/118.3.276.
  2. ^ Bernard F. Burke; Francis Graham-Smith (2010). An Introduction to Radio Astronomy. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-87808-1.
  3. ^ John D. Krauss (1966). "Chapter 6: Radio-Telescope Antennas". Radio Astronomy. New York, NY: McGraw Hill.
  4. ^ The Event Horizon Telescope Collaboration (April 10, 2019). "First M87 Event Horizon Telescope Results. II. Array and Instrumentation". The Astrophysical Journal Letters. 87 (1): L2. arXiv:1906.11239. Bibcode:2019ApJ...875L...2E. doi:10.3847/2041-8213/ab0c96.