Recent leak telescope development

The development of the leak telescope as a tool for detecting minute leaks inside a vacuum chamber is described. A more detailed model for the leak telescope that takes into account a variety of real-life effects has been developed. The model was experimentally verified and refined. Experimental results demonstrated that a fairly primitive leak telescope can detect the position of relatively small leaks (i.e. 1×10^-5 torr-l/s) at large distances (i.e. 1 m) in high vacuum (i.e. 1×10^-7 torr). The concept of an oscillating leak telescope holds promise for even better performance