VLT Survey Telescope - Technical Information

Technical Information

The VST is an alt-azimuthal wide-field survey telescope with a primary mirror diameter of 2.65 meters that was constructed from 2007-2011 at the ESO Cerro Paranal Observatory, in Chile. With a field of view of one square degree (roughly two full moons), its main scientific role is as a wide-field imaging instrument for exploring the large-scale structure of the universe (as visible from the southern hemisphere), able to identify the most suitable candidates for detailed examination by the VLT. Together with its camera OmegaCAM, the VST is able to obtain a high angular resolution (0.216 arcsec/pixel), and it is capable of performing stand-alone survey projects in the visible part of the spectrum.

Read more about this topic:  VLT Survey Telescope

Famous quotes containing the words technical and/or information:

    I rather think the cinema will die. Look at the energy being exerted to revive it—yesterday it was color, today three dimensions. I don’t give it forty years more. Witness the decline of conversation. Only the Irish have remained incomparable conversationalists, maybe because technical progress has passed them by.
    Orson Welles (1915–1984)

    We hear a great deal of lamentation these days about writers having all taken themselves to the colleges and universities where they live decorously instead of going out and getting firsthand information about life. The fact is that anybody who has survived his childhood has enough information about life to last him the rest of his days.
    Flannery O’Connor (1925–1964)