Wikipedia Project: Telescopes

The Very Large Telescope Project (VLT) consists of a system of four separate optical telescopes (the Antu telescope, the Kueyen telescope, the Melipal telescope, and the Yepun telescope) organized in an array formation. Each telescope has an 8.2 m aperture. The project is organized by the European Southern Observatory. VLT is located at the Paranal Observatory on Cerro Paranal, a 2,635 m high mountain in the Atacama desert in northern Chile. Very Large Telescope - General informa ...

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• Very Large Telescope - General information
• Very Large Telescope - Interferometry and the VLTI

Read more here: » Very Large Telescope: Encyclopedia - Very Large Telescope

SALT has been built on a hilltop in a nature reserve, 370 km (230 miles) northeast of Cape Town, near the small town of Sutherland. In March 2004, installation of the massive mirror began. The last of the 91 smaller mirrored hexagon segments was put in place in May 2005. Korea and Japan have telescopes at the site and South Africa has at least five optical telescopes there. The University of Birmingham has a solar telescope to help monitor the Sun around the clock. SALT will probe quasars and enable scientists to view s ...

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Southern African Large Telescope, Southern African Large Telescope - General information, Southern African Large Telescope - Partners

Read more here: » Southern African Large Telescope: Encyclopedia II - Southern African Large Telescope - General information

For detailed information on specific designs of reflecting and refracting telescopes, see the main articles on Reflecting telescopes and Refracting telescopes. The basic scheme is that the primary light-gathering element, the objective (objective lens (1) or concave mirror), focuses light from a distant object (4) to a focal plane where it forms a real image (5). This image is viewed through an eyepiece (2), which acts like a magnifying glass. The eye (3) sees ...

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Optical telescope, Optical telescope - How it works, Optical telescope - Angular resolution, Optical telescope - Focal length and f-ratio, Optical telescope - Light-gathering power, Optical telescope - Research telescopes

Read more here: » Optical telescope: Encyclopedia II - Optical telescope - How it works

The VLT consists of a cluster of four large (8.2 meter diameter) telescopes, and an interferometer (VLTI) which is used to resolve fine features. The interferometer will include a set of 1.8 meter diameter telescopes dedicated to interferometric observations. The 8.2 meter telescopes have been named after the names of some astronomical objects in the local Mapuche language: Antu (The Sun), Kueyen ...

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Very Large Telescope, Very Large Telescope - General information, Very Large Telescope - Interferometry and the VLTI

Read more here: » Very Large Telescope: Encyclopedia II - Very Large Telescope - General information

Ignoring blurring of the image by turbulence in the atmosphere (atmospheric seeing) and optical imperfections of the telescope, the angular resolution of an optical telescope is determined by the width of the objective, termed its "aperture." The Rayleigh criterion for the resolution limit αR (in radians) is given by ...

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Optical telescope, Optical telescope - How it works, Optical telescope - Angular resolution, Optical telescope - Focal length and f-ratio, Optical telescope - Light-gathering power, Optical telescope - Research telescopes

Read more here: » Optical telescope: Encyclopedia II - Optical telescope - Angular resolution

Nearly all large research-grade astronomical telescopes are reflectors. Some reasons are: In a lens the entire volume of material has to be free of imperfection and inhomogeneities, whereas in a mirror, only one surface has to be perfectly polished. Light of different colors travels through a medium other than vacuum at different speeds. This causes chromatic aberration. There are technical difficulties involved in manufacturing and manipulating large-aperture lenses. One of them is that all real materials sag ...

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Optical telescope, Optical telescope - How it works, Optical telescope - Angular resolution, Optical telescope - Focal length and f-ratio, Optical telescope - Light-gathering power, Optical telescope - Research telescopes

Read more here: » Optical telescope: Encyclopedia II - Optical telescope - Research telescopes

Most interferometry will be done using 1.8 meter Auxiliary Telescopes (ATs), which will be dedicated to full-time interferometric measurements. The first observations using a pair of ATs were conducted in February 2005, and additional ATs are expected to be installed soon. For interferometric observations on the brightest objects, there is little benefit in using 8 meter telescopes rather than 1.8 meter telescopes. In its interferometric operating mode, the light from the telescopes is reflected off mirrors and directed through tunnel ...

See also:

Very Large Telescope, Very Large Telescope - General information, Very Large Telescope - Interferometry and the VLTI

Read more here: » Very Large Telescope: Encyclopedia II - Very Large Telescope - Interferometry and the VLTI