View source for Cambridge Optical Aperture Synthesis Telescope

{{Short description|English astronomical interferometer observatory}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=April 2022}}
{{Infobox telescope}}
[[File:cmglee Cambridge MRAO COAST.jpg|thumb|250px|Part of COAST and the exterior of its bunker in June 2014]]

'''COAST''', the '''Cambridge Optical Aperture Synthesis Telescope''', is a multi-element optical [[astronomical interferometer]] with baselines of up to 100 metres, which uses [[aperture synthesis]] to observe stars with [[angular resolution]] as high as one thousandth of one [[arcsecond]] (producing much higher resolution images than individual telescopes, including the [[Hubble Space Telescope]]). The principal limitation is that COAST can only image bright [[star]]s.

COAST was the first long-baseline interferometer to obtain high-resolution images of the surfaces of stars other than Sun (although the surfaces of other stars had previously been imaged at lower resolution using [[aperture masking interferometry]] on the [[William Herschel Telescope]]).

The COAST array was conceived by [[John E. Baldwin]] and is operated by the [[Cavendish Astrophysics Group]]. It is situated at the [[Mullard Radio Astronomy Observatory]] in [[Cambridgeshire]], [[England]].

==See also==
* [[List of observatories]]
* [[List of telescope types]]

==References==
{{reflist}}

==External links==
* {{Commons category-inline}}

* [https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/6FF7E24B000A36042F3525766C714735/S007418090010748Xa.pdf/coast_interferometer.pdf The COAST Interferometer], COX G. C., 11 January 1993

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[[Category:Optical telescopes]]
[[Category:Interferometric telescopes]]
[[Category:Cavendish Laboratory]]


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