Palomar Testbed Interferometer
The Palomar Testbed Interferometer (PTI) was a near infrared, long-baseline stellar interferometer located at Palomar Observatory in north San Diego County, California, United States. It was built by Caltech and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and was intended to serve as a testbed for developing interferometric techniques to be used at the Keck Interferometer. It began operations in 1995 and achieved routine operations in 1998, producing more than 50 refereed papers in a variety of scientific journals covering topics from high precision astrometry to stellar masses, stellar diameters and shapes.
Palomar Testbed Interferometer
Gerard T. van Belle · Public domain
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The Palomar Testbed Interferometer (PTI) was a near infrared, long-baseline stellar interferometer located at Palomar Observatory in north San Diego County, California, United States. It was built by Caltech and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and was intended to serve as a testbed for developing interferometric techniques to be used at the Keck Interferometer. It began operations in 1995 and achieved routine operations in 1998, producing more than 50 refereed papers in a variety of scientific journals covering topics from high precision astrometry to stellar masses, stellar diameters and shapes.
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Overview
Overview
PTI concluded operations in 2008 and has since been dismantled. PTI was notable for being equipped with a "dual-star" system, making it possible to simultaneously observe pairs of stars; this cancels some of the atmospheric effects of astronomical seeing and makes very high precision measurements possible. A groundbreaking study with the Palomar Testbed Interferometer revealed that the star Altair is not spherical, but is rather flattened at the poles due to its high rate of rotation.
Key facts
Key facts
• Location — Palomar Mountain, California, US
Chronology
Dated record
Chronology
The full dated record · 1 entries
2006
Scientific Results from High-precision Astrometry at the Palomar Testbed Interferometer digitised by DataCite (arXiv).
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- United States
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Scientific Results from High-precision Astrometry at the Palomar Testbed Interferometer (2006) — DataCite (arXiv)
The Palomar Testbed Interferometer Calibrator Catalog (2007) — DataCite (arXiv)
Literature
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- 1.M. Shao. Differential Astrometry of the 61 Cygni System with the Palomar Testbed Interferometer. Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society. 31. 1504. 1999.
- 2.Boden, Andrew F. Testing Stellar Models with an Improved Physical Orbit for 12 Bootis. The Astrophysical Journal. 627. 1. 464–476. 1 July 2005. 10.1086/430058.
- 3.van Belle, G. T. Supergiant temperatures and linear radii from near-infrared interferometry. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. 394. 4. 1925–1935. 21 April 2009. 10.1111/j.1365-2966.2008.14146.x.
- 4.Caltech Astronomy. Caltech Astronomy - The Palomar Testbed Interferometer (PTI).
- 5.van Belle, Gerard T. Altair's Oblateness and Rotation Velocity from Long-Baseline Interferometry. The Astrophysical Journal. 559. 2. 1155–1164. 1 October 2001. 10.1086/322340.
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The Encyclopedia exists whether or not anything is for sale. Corrections are recorded rather than overwritten, and every version of this record is kept. Published 16 August 2026.
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