Beruflich Dokumente
Kultur Dokumente
VISIONS OF TOD
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By P K Chen
worlds largest telescopes. Atop faraway mountains, majestically above the clouds, these
optical wonders stand at the forefront of astronomy. The names Keck, Gemini, VLT,
Magellan, and Subaru are already well
known in the scientific community, but
seeing them firsthand is different.
From up close, their hardware and
homes seem to echo their names, as
if their mere existence commands
respect. The following pages provide very recent glimpses of these
engineering triumphs.
Much has changed since the
Hale 5.1-meter (200-inch) telescope on Palomar Mountain wore
the crown as the worlds premier instrument. These and other great observatories have all-new designs, each
with larger, better optics. Some of the current giants have segmented mirrors, domes
that turn with them, or perhaps a spinning dish
of liquid mercury. They use technologies such as active mirror supports, adaptive optics, even interferometry.
Following my photo essay are a comprehensive survey and
pullout poster of progress in the 20th century, where Roger W. Sinnott, David Tytell, and I detail more than six dozen of the largest current reflectors, refractors, and Schmidt telescopes on Earth. Following
that, Sky & Telescopes newest contributing editor, Govert Schilling, reports on what the next generation of giant scopes may be like.
Perhaps no less awe-inspiring than the instruments themselves are the discoveries they will make in years to come.
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The four reflectors of the Very Large Telescope bear names of celestial objects
in the Mapuche language still used by some native Chileans. From left they
are Antu, the Sun; Kueyen, the Moon; Melipal, the Southern Cross; and Yepun,
Sirius otherwise known as Unit Telescope 1, 2, 3, and 4, respectively. In this
five-hour exposure last September, their domes are aglow from moonlight in
the northwest (left) as Jupiter, Saturn, and the stars of Orion wheel overhead.
Tandem Telescopes
of the VLT
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Separated at Birth,
The Gemini Twins
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emini South (this page) was in the early stages of assembly when I visited last September. There I saw the
insides of its massive altazimuth bearing (left close-up) and
one of the altitude trunnions (right close-up) a far cry
from those of the usual Dobsonian. This telescopes
primary mirror arrived on the mountain in
February, and it may see first light this
month.
top the Manqui ridge at Las Campanas, Chile, a 10-knot wind blows from the north
all night long. Bright stars like Antares and Fomalhaut pass directly overhead. This is
the home of the Carnegie Institutions Magellan Project, where the first of two 6.5-m telescopes has already received its spin-cast mirror and is beginning to look a lot like a scaledup WIYN 3.5-m reflector. When I visited last fall, the first dome
was fully up and running, and a huge crane
was hoisting pieces of
the second dome into place. Each dome is
equipped with what look like giant Venetian
blinds to keep warm air from collecting around
the optics. No one is quite sure why, but
Las Campanas has some of the
best astronomical seeing
on the planet. Maybe
its because the terrain slopes down so sharply on all sides.
No giant gears on these scopes. They have pure friction
drives on their smooth altitude bearings. Climbing up to
one of the Nasmyth instrument platforms (small picture
above), I could see clear through to the other side because the flat mirror was not yet in place.
2000 Sky2000
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