The contract for the dome and telescope structure of the European Extremely Large Telescope has today been signed. The E-ELT is expected to achieve first light in 2024 as the worlds largest optical/infrared telescope at 39.3 meters. The 400 million euro contract is the largest stake in the E-ELT investment and puts the telescope on track to not only be the largest and most ambitious but also the first of a new generation of extremely large telescope.
The E-ELT will tackle problems in galaxy evolution, study exoplanets as well as cosmology and the large scale structure of the universe. It's near infrared imager will have about 8 times the resolution of the Hubble Space Telescope or the James Webb Space Telescope. It will reach deeper in spectroscopy that JWST and imaging at short wavelengths to study some of the first galaxies in the detail JWST will lack. It will reveal in 3 dimensions the processes that fuel galaxy formation as well as the mysterious Inter-Galactic Medium. With spectroscopy it discover and characterize earth like extrasolar planets, perhaps being the first facility to image rocky planets. It may even detect the expansion of the universe in real time over 20 years, if stability requirements can be met.
The E-ELT project has today taken a big step to transforming astronomy.
https://astronomynow.com/2016/05/25/eso-signs-e400-million-contract-for-e-elt-dome-and-39-metre-telescope-structure/
>>8099564
How can it be better than JWIST if it's on the ground?
>>8099589
It can outperform it in resolution with adpative optics. It outperforms it in some aspects of sensitivity by being fucking huge, it also has visible light capability.
Adaptive optics uses deformable mirrors to correct for seeing, the bluing affect of the atmosphere. Ground based telescopes can now recover the sorts of resolutions they would achieve in space. It has caveats, it is for now limited to the infrared and it works over small fields. E-ELT will push these constraints however and get a field of view that's only a few times smaller than JWST but with much more resolution.
Pic related is an Adaptive optics demonstrator on a 4 meter telescope outperforming hubble in the infrared.
>>8099609
Some more info on AO.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adaptive_optics
you're a big sky
>>8099589
It's fuckhuge, but the fact that it is on the ground limits the wavelengths it can see.
>>8099564
>I wanna put my dick in its lighthole.
I don't want to sound like a massive pop-sci faggot but can it see Planet Nine?
Sigh... if only we could actually build the Thirty Meter Telescope. It's the Superconducting supercollider all over again.
(North) Americans just can't science anymore.
>>8100019
the telescope would not be big enough to focus on your dick
>>8100020
Planet 9 if it exists (which I doubt) probably isn't very dim. Around 24th magnitude in the faintest part of it's orbit in astronomy terms in the visible V band. There are sky surveys that go that deep but they don't cover the whole sky. Most of it's orbit has already been ruled out by existing surveys. What you really need in order to find it is not a huge telescope but a survey telescope, just to be able to cover enough sky to find it. If it exists E-ELT could take detailed data on it.
>>8100019
>you wouldn't touch the sides
The focal plane is 2 meters across.
>>8100029
Aside from the permit problems TMT currently has the opposite problem from SSC, instead of the US government being the only funding source it hasn't actually got any government money yet. The US support for TMT is private, universities and foundations. Currently astronomers outside participating institutions (e.g. Caltec and the California universities who started TMT or CELT) have no right of access. If NSF doesn't fund either TMT or the Giant Magellan telescope US many US astronomers will not be able to apply for time. It's quite mad.
In Europe the have the European Southern Observatory who may suck up most the astronomy money in Europe but they have their shit together.
Why the duck would they build another bug Ben next to it, it would get in the way if the fuckikg pictures
>>8099564
>European Extremely Large Telescope
how fuck scientists have no vocabulary nor creativity in naming this. how dumb are they ?
>>8100521
They're probably German.
>>8100521
I belive astronomers are actually competing to give the most ridiculous names to their telescopes.
>>8100573
Fuck-Huge Sky-Penetrator was taken
>>8099609
Its happening! I'm excited, soon astronomers all over the world can constantly discover instead of waiting 5 years to spend a night in the only couple telescopes on the planet useful for groundbreaking discovery
>>8100521
Seriously wtf
>>8100521
It describes what it is, same as the LHC. A tool.
>>8100892
>A tool.
I guess that's why your parents called you 'mistake' lmoa
>>8100922
>>8100521
What will be bigger telescope called?
>>8100962
An earlier proposed project was the "Overwhelmingly Large Telescope", 100m across.
>>8101110
Was that a serious name idea or you fucking around?
>>8101110
Kek
>>8099589
The atmosphere absorbs a lot of IR
>>8101122
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overwhelmingly_Large_Telescope
>>8101122
He's serious
>>8101133
Why tho
>>8101138
Very Large Telescope was already taken, and they wanted OWL as the acronym.
>>8101144
Acronyms are cool as fuck tho
>>8101144
OK OWL sounds cool
>>8101144
Should go with Big Telescope Fully Optical.
BTFO would be a nice acronym
