Research report 2003 - Max Planck Institute for Astronomy

MIDI - Infrared-Interferometry at large Teleskopes

Authors
Bührke, Thomas; Staude, Jakob
Departments
Summary
After the first successful tests of the mid-infrared interferometric instrument MIDI at the ESO Very Large Telescope at the end of 2002, the phase of Science Demonstration followed in the year under report. MIDI fully met the high expectations and thus opened up a new field of astronomical observations: for the first time a resolution of one hundredth of an arc second can be achieved in the mid-infrared spectral range. Observations of circumstellar disks around young stars as well as of the dust ring in the center of an active galaxy demonstrate the enormous power of the instrument. MIDI was built by a consortium of German, Dutch, and French teams under the leadership of MPIA.

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