AMBER (Very Large Telescope)

AMBER, the Astronomical Multi-Beam Recombiner,^[1][2] is an instrument mounted on the Very Large Telescope (VLT), combining the light of the three Unit Telescopes in the near-infrared of the VLT-Interferometer (VLTI). It is at the source of a considerable number of publications^[3] in the field of optical long-baseline interferometry.

AMBER before its installation at the VLTI in 2003

It combines three out of the four telescopes of the VLTI, through a spectrograph, making it a unique instrument, combining spectroscopy and interferometry. These properties, and the fact that AMBER is an open-community instrument, made it a successful instrument. It can be compared to its fellow in the mid-infrared, the MIDI instrument in terms of the number of publications.

Highlights from the AMBER instrument^[4] include the first detection of a Keplerian-rotating disk around a Be star,^[5] the discovery of disks around evolved stars,^[6][7] the characterization of the disks of young stars,^[8][9] the observations of novae,^[10] the sharpest images of evolved stars ^{[11][12][13][14]} and the characterization of the central dusty torus of active galactic nuclei.^[15] As of the end of 2017, 150 refereed papers had been published using AMBER data.^[16]

See also

• Astronomical interferometer
• CHARA array
• GRAVITY – Very Large Telescope#Instruments
• Infrared Spatial Interferometer
• MATISSE – Multi Aperture Mid-Infrared Spectroscopic Experiment
• NPOI – Navy Precision Optical Interferometer