The biggest problem of course is that you get amazing resolution, but lose sensitivity, since you can't capture all of a wave front the way you can with a large optical telescope.
That sounds interesting but I don't know what it means. Could you explain it to a non-scientist?
What happens is rather simple. A solid reflector, such as on a radar antenna, will use the whole surface of the antenna as a reflective area. The resolution of the antenna depends on the diameter of the antenna, the sensitivity depends on the area. So if you build a solid antenna reflector the resolution and sensitivity will both go up as the size of the reflector goes up. If you build an interferometric antenna the separation between the 2 (or more) reflectors provides a resolution equivalent to that of a solid reflector , but the area is just the sum of the areas of the individual reflectors. So it will miss most of the radiation that would be caught by the solid reflector. I may not have stated that very well in my previous post.
I hope that clarifies the subject.
Bill Gill
