![]() ![]() According to Opticon principal investigator Gilmore, no decision has yet been made on the size or design of a European ELT. On the other side of the Atlantic, the European Commission is funding a similar study through the Opticon project (the name stands for Optical Infrared Coordination Network). Part of the $80 million study is already secured by a grant from the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation. Last summer, a Canadian group of universities joined the collaboration as a fourth partner. Last March they decided to join forces in a four-year design and development study for what is now called the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT). Caltech and the University of California were planning the 30-meter California Extremely Large Telescope (CELT), while the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy considered building a very similar Giant Segmented Mirror Telescope (GSMT). Meanwhile, two somewhat farther-along ELT projects recently merged into one. At the Sweden workshop, Roger Angel, the lab's scientific director, even suggested building two identical GMTs, either close together to work as an interferometer or at two different locations, one of which might be in Antarctica. GMT's 20-meter aperture would consist of seven 8.4-meter mirrors to be spin-cast, ground, and figured by the University of Arizona's Mirror Lab. But these projects are a long way from being realized, if they will ever be.Ī bit more mature is the plan for a Giant Magellan Telescope, to be built by the same five institutions that operate the twin 6.5-meter Magellan telescopes in Chile. The National Astronomical Observatory of Japan (NAOJ) hopes to build a 20-meter "Super-Subaru." In Texas, a scaled-up, 25-meter version of the Hobby-Eberly Telescope is on the drawing board. Canadian, French, and Hawaiian astronomers have drawn up three possible designs for a 20-meter next-generation Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope, dubbed the ngCFHT. Says Gerry Gilmore (Cambridge University), "In 2015 almost certainly one ELT will be nearing completion possibly two."Īdmittedly, the plans are just that: plans, or maybe dreams. At a recent international workshop on extremely large telescopes ("ELTs") in Bäckaskog, Sweden, various giant-telescope teams discussed their plans and projects. ![]() By then American astronomers should have access to a 30-meter behemoth, and construction of an even larger European telescope may be well underway ( Sky & Telescope: August 2000, page 52). Some 15 years from now, the 10-meter Keck telescopes on Mauna Kea, Hawaii, may look downright small. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |