The Very Large Telescope (VLT) is a facility operated by the European Southern Observatory, located on Cerro Paranal in the Atacama Desert of northern Chile. It consists of four individual telescopes, each equipped with a primary mirror that measures 8.2 meters in diameter. These optical telescopes, named Antu, Kueyen, Melipal, and Yepun, are generally used separately but can be combined to achieve a very high angular resolution. The VLT array is also complemented by four movable Auxiliary Telescopes (ATs) with 1.8-meter apertures.
The Overwhelmingly Large Telescope (OWL) was a conceptual design by the European Southern Observatory (ESO) organization for an extremely large telescope, which was intended to have a single aperture of 100 meters in diameter. Because of the complexity and cost of building a telescope of this unprecedented size, ESO has elected to focus on the 39-meter diameter Extremely Large Telescope instead.
The European Organisation for Astronomical Research in the Southern Hemisphere, commonly referred to as the European Southern Observatory (ESO), is an intergovernmental research organisation made up of 16 member states for ground-based astronomy. Created in 1962, ESO has provided astronomers with state-of-the-art research facilities and access to the southern sky. The organisation employs over 750 staff members and receives annual member state contributions of approximately €162 million. Its observatories are located in northern Chile.
The Large Binocular Telescope (LBT) is an optical telescope for astronomy located on 10,700-foot (3,300 m) Mount Graham, in the Pinaleno Mountains of southeastern Arizona, United States. It is a part of the Mount Graham International Observatory.
The W. M. Keck Observatory is an astronomical observatory with two telescopes at an elevation of 4,145 meters (13,600 ft) near the summit of Mauna Kea in the U.S. state of Hawaii. Both telescopes have 10 m (33 ft) aperture primary mirrors, and, when completed in 1993 and 1996, they were the largest optical reflecting telescopes in the world. They are currently the third and fourth largest.
Active optics is a technology used with reflecting telescopes developed in the 1980s, which actively shapes a telescope's mirrors to prevent deformation due to external influences such as wind, temperature, and mechanical stress. Without active optics, the construction of 8 metre class telescopes is not possible, nor would telescopes with segmented mirrors be feasible.
The National Optical Astronomy Observatory (NOAO) was the United States national observatory for ground-based nighttime ultraviolet-optical-infrared (OUVIR) astronomy. The National Science Foundation (NSF) funded NOAO to provide forefront astronomical research facilities for US astronomers. Professional astronomers from any country in the world could apply to use the telescopes operated by NOAO under the NSF's "open skies" policy.
The Magellan Telescopes are a pair of 6.5-metre-diameter (21 ft) optical telescopes located at Las Campanas Observatory in Chile. The two telescopes are named after the astronomer Walter Baade and the philanthropist Landon T. Clay. First light for the telescopes was on September 15, 2000 for the Baade, and September 7, 2002 for the Clay. A consortium consisting of the Carnegie Institution for Science, University of Arizona, Harvard University, the University of Michigan and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology built and operate the twin telescopes. The telescopes were named after the sixteenth-century Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan.
Paranal Observatory is an astronomical observatory operated by the European Southern Observatory (ESO). It is located in the Atacama Desert of Northern Chile on Cerro Paranal at 2,635 m (8,645 ft) altitude, 120 km (70 mi) south of Antofagasta. By total light-collecting area, it is the largest optical-infrared observatory in the Southern Hemisphere; worldwide, it is second to the Mauna Kea Observatory on Hawaii.
The Giant Magellan Telescope is a 25.4-meter, ground-based, extremely large telescope under construction at Las Campanas Observatory in Chile's Atacama Desert. Commissioning is anticipated in the early 2030s. Once complete, the Giant Magellan will be the largest Gregorian telescope ever built observing in optical and mid-infrared light. The telescope uses seven of the world’s largest mirrors to form a light collecting area of 368 square meters.
The Extremely Large Telescope (ELT) is an astronomical observatory under construction. When completed, it will be the world's largest optical/near-infrared extremely large telescope. Part of the European Southern Observatory (ESO) agency, it is located on top of Cerro Armazones in the Atacama Desert of northern Chile.
Las Campanas Observatory (LCO) is an astronomical observatory owned and operated by the Carnegie Institution for Science (CIS). It is in the southern Atacama Desert of Chile in the Atacama Region approximately 100 kilometres (62 mi) northeast of the city of La Serena. The LCO telescopes and other facilities are near the north end of a 7 km (4.3 mi) long mountain ridge. Cerro Las Campanas, near the southern end and over 2,500 m (8,200 ft) high, is the future home of the Giant Magellan Telescope.
The Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT) is a planned extremely large telescope (ELT) that has become controversial due to its location on Mauna Kea, on the island of Hawaiʻi. The TMT would become the largest visible-light telescope on Mauna Kea.
An astronomical interferometer or telescope array is a set of separate telescopes, mirror segments, or radio telescope antennas that work together as a single telescope to provide higher resolution images of astronomical objects such as stars, nebulas and galaxies by means of interferometry. The advantage of this technique is that it can theoretically produce images with the angular resolution of a huge telescope with an aperture equal to the separation, called baseline, between the component telescopes. The main drawback is that it does not collect as much light as the complete instrument's mirror. Thus it is mainly useful for fine resolution of more luminous astronomical objects, such as close binary stars. Another drawback is that the maximum angular size of a detectable emission source is limited by the minimum gap between detectors in the collector array.
A segmented mirror is an array of smaller mirrors designed to act as segments of a single large curved mirror. The segments can be either spherical or asymmetric. They are used as objectives for large reflecting telescopes. To function, all the mirror segments have to be polished to a precise shape and actively aligned by a computer-controlled active optics system using actuators built into the mirror support cell.
The California Extremely Large Telescope(CELT) was a proposal for an extremely large telescope design first proposed in the 1990s by a consortium of Californian Universities. The design was for a segmented 30 m diameter astronomical telescope. The CELT had a positive reception and continued to be developed, and was renamed the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT) around 2003–4. The CELT was one of the earlier and more successful proposals for extremely large telescopes.
Cerro Armazones is a mountain located in the Sierra Vicuña Mackenna of the Chilean Coast Range of Andes, approximately 130 km (81 mi) south-east of Antofagasta in the Antofagasta Region, Chile. The mountain is located in a privileged zone for optical astronomy because it has 89% cloudless nights a year. On 26 April 2010, the European Southern Observatory Council selected Cerro Armazones as the site for the planned Extremely Large Telescope (ELT); the construction began in June 2014, and the first light is expected in 2027. Before the construction of the ELT began, the elevation of Cerro Armazones had been 3,064 metres (10,052 ft), but now the top is truncated and the resulting plateau is several meters lower.
Charles Mattias ("Matt") Mountain is currently the President of the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy (AURA) which designs, builds, and operates telescopes and observatories for the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). AURA's NASA center is the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI), responsible for the science mission for the Hubble Space Telescope, the science and operations for the James Webb Space Telescope, and the MAST data archive. AURA's NSF centers are Gemini Observatory, the National Optical Astronomy Observatory (NOAO), and the National Solar Observatory (NSO). Dr. Mountain and AURA are also responsible for the NSF construction projects: the Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope (DKIST) on Haleakalā, Hawaii and the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST) on Cerro Pachón in Chile.
