Comparison
One of the largest ground-based telescope operating today is the Gran Telescopio Canarias, with a 10.4m aperture and a light-collecting area of 74m2. Other planned extremely large telescopes include, the 25 m/368 m2 Giant Magellan Telescope and 30 m/655 m2 Thirty Meter Telescope, which are also targeting the end of this decade or beginning of the next for completion. These other two telescopes roughly belong to the same next generation of optical ground-based telescopes. Each design is much larger than previous telescopes. Even with the descale to 39.3 m it is significantly larger than these other planned observatories; it is the largest of the planned new generation extremely large telescopes. It has the aim of observing the Universe in greater detail than the Hubble Space Telescope by taking images 15 times sharper, although it is designed to be complementary to space telescopes, which typically have very limited time available.
| Name | Aperture diameter (m) | Collecting area (m²) |
|---|---|---|
| E-ELT | 39.3 | 978 |
| Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT) | 30 | 655 |
| Giant Magellan Telescope (GMT) | 24.5 | 368 |
| Gran Telescopio Canarias (GTC) | 10.4 | 74 |
The 4.2 meter secondary mirror is the same size as the primary mirror on the William Herschel Telescope, the second largest optical telescope in Europe.
Read more about this topic: European Extremely Large Telescope
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