Experimental Investigation of Non-Redundant Aperture Masking Technique in Binary-Star Detection

It is one of the main aims for the most astronomical observations to obtain the diffraction-limited images by the large ground -borne optical telescope. The limited resolution induced by the atmospheric fluctuation can be overcome by the addition of non-redundant aperture masks on the telescope pupils and the closure phase technique. The progress, principle and applications of non -redundant aperture masking technique arc reviewed, and the mathematical model for the application of this technique into the binary-star detection is established. The computer simulation and the corresponding experimental investigation arc conducted. The research results show that one can obtain the closure phase by processing the interferogram obtained from the non -redundant aperture masking and thus the binary-star contrast ratio and angular separation can be obtained by fitting algorithms.