First images on the sky from a hyper telescope

We show star images obtained with a miniature "densified pupil imaging inte rferometer" also called a hyper-telescope. The formation of such images vio lates a "golden rule of imaging interferometers" which appeared to forbid t he use of interferometric arrangements differing from a Fizeau interferomet er. These produce useless images when the sub-apertures spacing is much wid er than their size, owing to diffraction through the sub-apertures. The hyp er-telescope arrangement solves these problems opening the way towards mult i-kilometer imaging arrays in space. We experimentally obtain an intensity gain of 24 +/- 3x when a densified-pupil interferometer is compared to an e quivalent Fizeau-type interferometer and show images of the double star alp ha Gem. The initial results presented confirm the possibility of directly o btaining high resolution and high dynamic range images in the recombined fo cal plane of a large interferometer if enough elements are used.