MODEL RELEASED: COAST telescope. View of the Cambridge Optical Aperture Synthesis Telescope (COAST). This is the world's first optical interferometer telescope. Each of the three white boxes contains a 40cm Cassegrain telescope. Light from each is fed via beam pipes (silver/white tubes) to the beam combining building (beneath light). There the three images are merged by an interferometer to form a single image. This technique imitates a telescope of up to 100 metres diameter, and can achieve resolutions about ten times finer than the Hubble Space Telescope. Its first images were made in September 1995. This frame is a composite of two photographs.