Abstract

This project was initiated to meet the optical coating needs of the Sydney University Chatterton Astronomy Department. The university is engaged in producing a very high angular resolution stellar interferometer (SUSI)¹. The instrument involves eleven coelostats located in a configuration of minimum redundancy along a 640 metres baseline. Each coelostat is equipped with five 200mm diameter mirrors. In all there are fifty seven 200mm mirrors forming the beam line with ten in use at any one time. In the laboratory the starlight passes through a beam reducing telescope to be followed by an optical path length compensator which involves a further thirty two 80mm diameter mirrors. The starlight entering each coelostat will undergo as many as twenty three reflections before recombination at the optical tables.

© 1992 Optical Society of America