Bootstrapping a Five-Telescope Linear Array with the New Classic Beam Combiner at the Navy Precision Optical Interferometer

The optical interferometer array configuration that attains highest angular resolution for a given number of array elements is a linear array with equal spacing between array elements, in which the array is phased by tracking fringes on the neighbor-to-neighbor baselines. We demonstrate this technique with observations taken with a nearly-linear configuration of the Navy Precision Optical Interferometer (NPOI). This chain bootstrapping technique required an upgrade to the NPOI beam combiner, which we dub New Classic. We describe the control scheme for New Classic for phasing the array and present observations of two stars to demonstrate the technique. To analyze the data, we use the post-processing technique of coherent averaging, in which the fringe phases on the neighbor-to-neighbor baselines are used to correct the phases on the longer baselines before averaging the complex visibilities.