Latest Overwhelmingly Large Telescope Stories

Lee Rannals for redOrbit.com [ Watch the video ] The European Extremely Large Telescope (ELT) has been given the go-ahead by the organization overseeing the project to move on with it. The $1.3 billion telescope will look for planets outside the solar system and those orbiting other stars in "habitable zones." The telescope will use a 127-feet mirror, helping it gather more than 12 times the light that the largest optical telescopes being used today gather. "Its unique...

[ Video 1 ] | [ Video 2 ] The governing body of the European Southern Observatory, the ESO Council, has approved ESO’s budget for 2012. This includes preparatory work on the road to the European Extremely Large Telescope (E-ELT) site at Cerro Armazones and the start of development of some very challenging optical components for the telescope. With several ESO Member States now having committed their part of the required additional funding, the final approval for the whole E-ELT program...

The Science Technology and Facilities Council (STFC) confirmed that it will provide nearly $5.5 million (US) to UK scientists to develop key instruments for the European Extremely Large Telescope (E-ELT), which is slated to be the biggest optical and infrared telescope in the world. With funding in place, British astronomers will now be able to take a leading role in building the critical scientific instruments needed for the E-ELT, which will be constructed in Chile and should be complete...

The development of new technological advances is setting the course for a worldwide telescopic arms race. Astronomers are currently planning to construct large land-based telescopes with the capability of seeing further back in time than ever before. The telescopes will produce clearer images than even those taken by the Hubble Space Telescope which was put into orbit in 1990 and was long respected for its ability to clear up distortion caused by the Earth's atmosphere. Now, new land-based...

ESO Council Gives Green Light to Detailed Study of the European Extremely Large Telescope European astronomy has received a tremendous boost with the decision from ESO's governing body to proceed with detailed studies for the European Extremely Large Telescope. This study, with a budget of 57 million euro, will make it possible to start, in three years time, the construction of an optical/infrared telescope with a diameter around 40m that will revolutionise ground-based astronomy. The chosen...

PPARC -- Astronomers from across Europe today (July 7th) took a step closer to making their plans for a giant telescope a reality when they unveiled the scientific case for an Extremely Large Telescope (ELT) - a monster telescope with a light capturing mirror of between 50 and 100 metres, dwarfing all previous optical telescope facilities. The announcement was made at a meeting in Dwingeloo, the Netherlands and initiates the design phase of the project. Astronomers plan to use the ELT to...