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The Navy Prototype Optical Interferometer (NPOI) Observatory on Anderson Mesa, Flagstaff, AZ currently uses several small flat mirrors to map the location of stars in the sky. By using several small telescopes spread out over a large area diameter, the NPOI Observatory is able to achieve the same resolution as a mirror of equivalent diameter. Currently, the setup is not using its full potential due to the incapability of compressing the reflected light into a collimated beam. The current mirrors are flat surfaced and do not have a way to compress the incoming light to a dense beam of photons. The Off-Axis Beam Compressor, depicted to the right, more commonly referred to as the Big Beam Compressor (BBC), will allow the observatory to capture more light from each mirror and allow it to map stars at larger resolutions. The BBC does this by using a pair of concave and convex parabolic mirrors. By doing this, the observatory will be able to distinguish fainter stars.
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