COAST
Cambridge Optical Aperture Synthesis Telescope
COAST is a multi-element optical interferometer with baselines of up to 100 metres, designed to observe stars with angular resolution as high as one thousandth of one arcsecond. This website consists of a set of pages giving information about COAST, including astronomical results obtained with the telescope. COAST is currently used mainly as a testbed for subsystems and components intended for MROI, VLTI, and future optical interferometer arrays. The team who built COAST are collaborating with New Mexico Tech on the Magdalena Ridge Observatory Interferometer (MROI), which will employ the principles pioneered at COAST to image faint and complex astronomical targets. The MROI will provide new insights into the physics of star and planet formation, stellar accretion and mass loss, and Active Galactic Nuclei. For more details on the full range of research performed by members of the Cavendish optical interferometry group, please refer to our optical interferometry front page.
Information about COAST
- A visual introduction to COAST (new 2012/08/24)
- “Building the world’s largest optical telescope”, a gentle introduction to COAST for non-experts
- An introduction to COAST
- The history and current status of COAST
- Astronomical results from COAST
- Details of the telescope construction
- Fringes and power spectra
- Downloadable files, including images
Links to Elsewhere
- Magdalena Ridge Observatory
- JPL’s Optical Long Baseline Interferometry News including interferometry links
- Lucky Imaging web site