An Etymological Dictionary of Astronomy and Astrophysics
English-French-Persian

1) The technique and study of the → interference phenomenon produced by → coherent electromagnetic waves.
2) Astro.: An observational technique that uses the interference phenomenon to substantially increase the → resolving power of telescopes.

Interferometry, from interfer, → interfer, + -o- a connective/euphonic infix + → -metry.

A technique for blocking the light of a bright source in order to reveal a faint source near it. This technique uses destructive → interference between two or more → coherent beams from a number of telescopes to make the bright center dark. Nulling interferometry can be used to search the region immediately around a star for → extrasolar planets and → circumstellar dust clouds by suppressing the star's glare.

Nulling, from → null; → interferometry.

A technique for generating a clear composite image of a celestial object blurred by → atmospheric turbulence in which a large number of short-exposure photographs are mathematically correlated by a computer. By comparing the behavior of the → speckles in a series of images it is possible to approach the theoretical resolution of the telescope.

→ speckle; → interferometry.

A technique in radio interferometry in which the individual telescopes are not directly connected together, but instead make their observations separately with very accurate timings. The data are later sent to a central correlator to be combined. With this technique the individual telescopes can be arbitrarily far apart, and so the technique provides the highest resolution images in astronomy, typically down to a few milliarcseconds.

→ very; → large; → baseline; → interferometry.