M. J. Creech-Eakman
New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology, New Mexico, United States
Keywords: astronomical interferometry, ground-based imaging, aperture synthesis
The Magdalena Ridge Observatory Interferometer (MROI) is an optical/near-infrared astronomical interferometer being built today in central New Mexico. Our team consists of more than 20 faculty and staff at New Mexico Tech and the University of Cambridge, and we are supported through a cooperative agreement with the AFRL in Albuquerque, NM. When completed, MROI will consist of 10 1.4m movable telescopes laid out across more than 340 meters which will allow imaging at spatial scales as small as 0.5m at GEO. The MROI’s sensitivity is projected to be 5 magnitudes deeper than similar facilities today, enabling faint and complex images to be created rapidly for a large number of GEO and astronomical targets. Additionally, we are implementing automation and machine learning techniques to increase the efficiency and reliability of the facility for rapidly acquiring interferometric data. These capabilities, as well as other special features of the MROI, will be critical for creating images of GEO assets or time-variable astrophysical phenomena. We will present our current status of the MROI, as well as presenting sample imaging capabilities and our projected timeline for completion of the full facility.