The economic impact of a Very Large Telescope
Wednesday, July 2, 2014 - 07:30
in Astronomy & Space
The European Southern Observatory's VLT, Very Large Telescope, is a group of four 8.2-metre diameter optical telescopes located in northern Chile. It also has four movable 1.8-metre diameter auxiliary telescopes and they all work together to act as what ESO calls a "giant interferometer". The overall resolution of this instrument is some 25 times higher with the system acting as an interferometer than is achievable with any of the individual telescopes.