Michelson Interferometry with the Keck I Telescope

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Abstract
We report the first use of Michelson interferometry on the Keck I telescope for diffraction‐limited imaging in the near‐infrared JHKL bands. By using an aperture mask located close to the f/25 secondary, the 10 m Keck primary mirror was transformed into a separate‐element, multiple‐aperture interferometer. This has allowed diffraction‐limited imaging of a large number of bright astrophysical targets, including the geometrically complex dust envelopes around a number of evolved stars. The successful restoration of these images, with dynamic ranges in excess of 200∶1, highlights the significant capabilities of sparse aperture imaging as compared with more conventional filled‐pupil speckle imaging for the class of bright targets considered here. In particular, the enhancement of the signal‐to‐noise ratio of the Fourier data, precipitated by the reduction in atmospheric noise, allows high‐fidelity imaging of complex sources with small numbers of short‐exposure images relative to speckle. Multiepoch measurements confirm the reliability of this imaging technique, and our whole data set provides a powerful demonstration of the capabilities of aperture‐masking methods when utilized with the current generation of large‐aperture telescopes. The relationship between these new results and recent advances in interferometry and adaptive optics is briefly discussed.
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