Very Large Telescope Platform in the Twilight
By Year: 2016 | Chile | Earthshines & Crescent Moons | ESO Photo Ambassador | Moonlight Scenes | Panoramic & Wide Views | Professional Observatories in the World | Southern Hemisphere | The Moon | Twilight Dawn & Dusk | VLT | Zodiacal Light & Gegenschein
Nautical twilight, above the Very Large Telescope platform. Near the horizon the bright moon is shining above the Antu telescope, the first one near the center. At his left, above the horizon are visible some of the Auxiliary Telescopes (ATs) of 1.8 m aperture. At the right side of Antu, the telescopes Kueyen, Melipal and Yepun, with mirrors of 8.2m diameter, are opening and preparing for a night of observations. This telescopes are generally used separately, but can be used together to achieve a very high angular resolution. Looking from outside, they are reflecting a silver color coming from the moon reflection on its metalic surface. In the ground, at the left side of the image, we can see part of the interferometer (VLTI) complex, where the movable Auxiliary Telescopes can be placed.
The Very Large Telescope (VLT) is a telescope operated by the ESO – European Southern Observatory on Cerro Paranal in the Atacama Desert of northern Chile. The 8.2m diameter Unit Telescopes can also be used individually. With one such telescope, images of celestial objects as faint as magnitude 30 can be obtained in a one-hour exposure. This corresponds to seeing objects that are four billion (four thousand million) times fainter than what can be seen with the unaided eye. The telescopes can work together, to form a giant ‘interferometer’, the ESO Very Large Telescope Interferometer, allowing astronomers to see details up to 25 times finer than with the individual telescopes. The light beams are combined in the VLTI using a complex system of mirrors in underground tunnels where the light paths must be kept equal to distances less than 1/1000 mm over a hundred meters. With this kind of precision the VLTI can reconstruct images with an angular resolution of milliarcseconds, equivalent to distinguishing the two headlights of a car at the distance of the Moon.
Image taken taken in 15/10/2015 from Cerro Paranal, Atacama desert, Chile.
