Design
The telescope's "eye" will be 39.3 meters (about half the length of a football pitch/soccer field) in diameter and will gather 15 times more light than the largest optical telescopes operating at the time of its development. The telescope has an innovative five-mirror design that includes advanced adaptive optics to correct for the turbulent atmosphere, giving exceptional image quality.
The primary mirror for the 39.3 metre design will be composed of 798 hexagonal segments, each 1.45 meters across but only 50 mm thick. A special correcting mirror in the telescope will be supported by more than 6,000 actuators that can distort its shape a thousand times per second. The telescope main structure will weigh about 2,800 tons.
Read more about this topic: European Extremely Large Telescope
Famous quotes containing the word design:
“I begin with a design for a hearse.
For Christ’s sake not black—
nor white either—and not polished!
Let it be weathered—like a farm wagon—”
—William Carlos Williams (1883–1963)
“Joe ... you remember I said you wouldn’t be cheated?... Nobody is really. Eventually all things work out. There’s a design in everything.”
—Sidney Buchman (1902–1975)
“We find that Good and Evil happen alike to all Men on this Side of the Grave; and as the principle Design of Tragedy is to raise Commiseration and Terror in the Minds of the Audience, we shall defeat this great End, if we always make Virtue and Innocence happy and successful.”
—Joseph Addison (1672–1719)