Establishing visible interferometer system responses: Resolved and unresolved calibrators

This investigation examines the propagation of errors through the uniform disk visibility function. The implications of those errors on measurements of absolute visibility through optical and near-infrared interferometers are considered within the context of using calibration stars to establish system visibilities for these instruments. We suggest a simple ratio test to establish empirically whether or not the measured visibilities produced by such an instrument are relative ( errors dominated by calibrator angular size prediction error) or absolute ( errors dominated by measurement error).