Link

Now that is a telescope I wouldnt mind having in my backyard Making it fit is another thing though :-k.
Seriously though, I hope I'll be alive to see the pictures it takes when it's complete.

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Fahad Sulehria,
Astronomical Artist,
Administrator of Nova Celestia.

Earlier discussion of the GMT here:

http://www.badastronomy.com/phpBB/vi...c.php?p=381818

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Delicious.

The San Jose Mercury devoted a full page, Page 3, to an article, with a half-page color picture of two workers on a platform above the glass. The story came from the New York Times, so it's likely in a lot of papers, like this: The Rutland Herald: Racing to build a giant telescope. I hope they all got the giant-picture treatment.

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I used to live in Rutland and subscribed to that newspaper.

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There are ten kinds of people. Those that understand binary, and those that do not.

I was thinking about using such a mirror to warm my round backyard swimming pool .

10* Hubble's resolution, does that take atmospheric disturbances into account? I know that those don't really influence resolution, but in practice they do limit the size of viewable objects due to haziness.

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To the regular visitor of internet bulletin boards it is clear that it's an excellent idea your parents get to choose your real name.

I believe the 10 times Hubble's resolution assumes the GMT will be using a pretty good adaptive optics system to remove the blurring of the atmosphere.

Rob

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plenty of infos about GMT progress at

http://www.gmto.org


live long and prosper

Mauro

just to give an idea of this baby's dimensions...

Muro

Attached Images

circles_from_stairs1.jpg (90.4 KB, 25 views)

Is it possible to construct a mirror using broken mirror pieces like a crazy paving
inside the concave shape. And if it is would it work.? :- )

Well, yes it is possible, but it would be difficult to align them all for astronomy work. You could easily, for example, build something like that as a solar concentrator, for cooking things, or (if big enough) melting metals. BTW, it would take a lot of broken mirror parts to cover a 25 meter diameter dish.

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The Keck Telescope mirrors are actually 36 separate segments.

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Everything I need to know I learned through Googling.

There's an interesting article about the Giant Magellan Telescope (GMT) on discover.com and in the February issue of Discover magazine. When I first read it, I was surprised that it said that the GMT may be the first telescope to directly image an extrasolar "planet" (haha). This was surprising to me because of the two noteworthy claims that this has already been done and because the GMT is supposed to be completed in 2016. However, if the claims are not accepted and no other telescope performs the feat before GMT, I suppose it's possible. Anyway, it seems that the GMT will be a great telescope if it can be made to work.

The timeplan for OWL has it at being operational with a 70m mirror by 2016, and the full planned 100m by 2021. I guess the difference is that work on the GMT has already started, whereas OWL is still pretty much only on the drawing board. Still, if work on the OWL would barge ahead, the GMT will be upstaged rather badly on completion, I think. Not that there can ever be too many giant telescopes in the world, of course...

Does anyone have a list of big 'scopes in the work, with completion dates?

also discussed here
Extremely Large Telescope Takes the Next Step
on the ground there a load of ideas for big scopes like Euro50, for space they have plans like Terrestrial Planet Finder