The Most Powerful Telescopes in the World: Focusing on a Coin 2,000 Miles Away

The Most Powerful Telescopes in the World: Focusing on a Coin 2,000 Miles Away

By Mr Ghaz, February 21, 2011

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The Most Powerful Telescopes in the World: Focusing on a Coin 2,000 Miles Away

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The past 30 years have witnessed enormous advances in astronomy. But as each discovery poses new questions, astronomers look forward for a new generation of telescopes that will help that derives some of the answers.

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The most powerful conventional telescopes in the world are reflectors that use giant mirrors to capture light. But with the 200-inch telescope at the Hale Observatories in Los Angeles at the 236-inch reflector near Zelenchukskaya in the Caucasus Mountains of Russia, the limits of building single mirrors free of the slightest aberration have been reached. Instead, designers are constructing telescopes that use a number of small mirrors aligned by a computer to act one giant reflector.

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The National New Technology Telescope on Mauna Kea, in Hawaii is one of the first of the combined- mirror telescopes. With an effective diameter almost four times that of Hale’s that will be able to probe much farther into space. Similar telescopes are currently being developed in Europe and Russia.

Getting the Details

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Seeing deeper into space in only one aim of the new generation of telescopes. Astronomers also want to look at previously observed star in greater detail, which means improving the sharpness, or resolution of the image the telescope obtains. A new technique known as optical interferometer holds great promise. It electronically combines the images obtained from two linked telescopes that are some obtained from two linked telescopes that are some distance apart. The light waves of both signals must coincide exactly to obtain an image; continual minute adjustments are made to each telescope with a computer-controlled feedback system.