Large Binocular Telescope Interferometer

NExScI will provide the solicitation and selection and data archiving for the NASA portion of time on the Large Binocular Telescope Interferometer (LBTI) instrument, to be mounted on the Large Binocular Telescope (LBT). Depicted on the right, the LBT is composed of two 8.4m telescopes in a binocular mount. This geometry ensures preservation of the input pupil geometry for an arbitrary pointing, and makes the LBT ideal for image plane ("Fizeau") beam combination over a wide field.

The LBT expects first light on the two 8.4m primary telescopes in 2004 and 2005. LBTI expects to begin sky operations in 2006. More details on NExScI's role in the operations for LBTI will be forthcoming in 2006.