Development of POINTS as a planetology instrument

During the reporting period, we carried out investigations required to enhance our design of POINTS as a tool for the search for and characterization of extra-solar planetary systems. The results of that work were included in a paper on POINTS as well as one on Newcomb, which will soon appear in the proceedings of SPIE Conference 2200. (Newcomb is a spinoff of POINTS. It is a small astrometric interferometer now being developed jointly by SAO and the U.S. Navy. It could help establish some of the technology needed for POINTS.) These papers are appended.