Newcomb Spaceborne Optical Interferometer
Newcomb has been developed by the Precision Astronomy Group
in collaboration with K. Johnston (US Naval Observatory)
and Litton Itek Optical Systems.
Newcomb is an optical interferometer concept similar to POINTS, but
with many systems omitted for reduced cost and weight. The present
nominal baseline length is 35 cm, and each aperture is 5 cm in
diameter. The critical distances within the interferometer are
metered by thermally stable glass instead of the laser gauges used in
POINTS. To compensate for its sharply reduced range of articulation,
Newcomb uses multiple interferometers (between 3 and 5); the angles
between the interferometers are chosen to match the vertex-vertex
angles seen from the interior of a truncated regular icosahedron
(soccer ball, a.k.a buckyball). Much of the instrument design
remains to be done, although much of our work on POINTS carries
over easily.
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