The startlingly durable technique of aperture masking, the principles of which were conceived more than 130 years ago, has in recent years maintained and expanded an imaging niche in modern astronomy against formidable technological competition. Images of bright compact targets with complex structure at the diffration limit of a large telescope recovered by masking remain unsurpassed. The experiment is of particular interest in presaging data analysis and image reconstruction strategies for the coming generation of long baseline optical interferometers just now being commissioned. Both masking and long baseline interferometry deliver sparsely sampled visibilities and closure phases recorded under the phase-unstable optical regime: the experiments are conceptually identical but for a size/resolution scaling. In addition to highlighting the physical reasons underpinning the success of aperture masking, I will discuss the future of this technique and broader lessons for image recovery.
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