Planet photographed forming

[Robert A Whit]

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=1st-photo-of-alien-planet

First Photo of Alien Planet Forming Snapped by TelescopeA Jupiter-like gas giant, 335 light-years from Earth, is caught in the process of formation by the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope in Chile
By Clara Moskowitz (http://www.scientificamerican.com/author.cfm?id=1839) and SPACE.com (http://www.scientificamerican.com/author.cfm?id=2988)

[fj1200]

In the beginning...

[darin]

Or - its not forming. Maybe that's all it ever will be. Nothing simply happens.

[logroller]

Did anyone notice the name of the telescope capturing the image? I'd think that in a field which brought us words like aphelion, zenith, nebulae, etc that they could come up with a better descriptor than "very large". I suppose astronomers mights as well be called star-studiers :laugh:

[Robert A Whit]

Did anyone notice the name of the telescope capturing the image? I'd think that in a field which brought us words like aphelion, zenith, nebulae, etc that they could come up with a better descriptor than "very large". I suppose astronomers mights as well be called star-studiers :laugh:

Perhaps you don't yet know of the telescopes in Chile. What do you want to bet the telescope is the biggest in Chile?

I dunno but now I plan to find out.

[Robert A Whit]

Very Large Telescope From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Very_Large_Telescope#mw-head), search (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Very_Large_Telescope#p-search)

<tbody>
Very Large Telescope


http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/a7/Aerial_View_of_the_VLTI_with_Tunnels_Superimposed. jpg/250px-Aerial_View_of_the_VLTI_with_Tunnels_Superimposed. jpg (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Aerial_View_of_the_VLTI_with_Tunnels_Superimp osed.jpg) <small>The four Unit Telescopes that form the VLT together with the Auxiliary Telescopes</small>



Organization
European Southern Observatory (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Southern_Observatory) (ESO)


Location
Paranal Observatory (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paranal_Observatory), Atacama desert (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atacama_desert), Chile (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chile)


Coordinates
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/55/WMA_button2b.png/17px-WMA_button2b.png24°37′38″S 70°24′15″W (http://toolserver.org/%7Egeohack/geohack.php?pagename=Very_Large_Telescope&params=24_37_38_S_70_24_15_W_region:CL-AN_type:landmark_scale:2500)


Altitude
2,635 m


Weather
>340 clear nights/year


Wavelength (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wavelength)
300 nm – 20 μm (visible, near- and mid-infrared)


First light (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_light_%28astronomy%29)
1998 (for the first Unit Telescope)


Telescope style
Ritchey-Chrétien (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ritchey-Chr%C3%A9tien)


Diameter
4 x 8.2-metre Unit Telescopes (UT), plus 4 x 1.8-metre moveable Auxiliary Telescopes (AT)


Mounting (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telescope_mount)
Altazimuth (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Altazimuth)


Website
Very Large Telescope (http://www.eso.org/vlt)

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The Very Large Telescope (VLT) is a telescope operated by the European Southern Observatory (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Southern_Observatory) on Cerro Paranal (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cerro_Paranal) in the Atacama Desert (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atacama_Desert) of northern Chile (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chile). The VLT consists of four individual telescopes, each with a primary mirror (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primary_mirror) 8.2m across, which are generally used separately but can be used together to achieve very high angular resolution (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angular_resolution).[1] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Very_Large_Telescope#cite_note-esovlt-1) The four separate optical telescopes (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optical_telescope) are known as Antu, Kueyen, Melipal and Yepun, which are all words for astronomical objects in the Mapuche language (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mapuche_language). The telescopes form an array which is complemented by four movable Auxiliary Telescopes (ATs) of 1.8 m aperture.
The VLT operates at visible (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visible_light) and infrared (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infrared) wavelengths (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wavelengths). Each individual telescope can detect objects roughly four billion times fainter than what can be detected with the naked eye (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naked_eye), and when all the telescopes are combined, the facility can achieve an angular resolution (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angular_resolution) of about 0.001 arc-second. This is equivalent to roughly two metres at the distance of the Moon.[1] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Very_Large_Telescope#cite_note-esovlt-1)
The VLT is the most productive ground-based facility for astronomy, with only the Hubble Space Telescope (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hubble_Space_Telescope) generating more scientific papers among facilities operating at visible wavelengths.[2] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Very_Large_Telescope#cite_note-2) Among the pioneering observations carried out using the VLT are the first direct image of an exoplanet (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exoplanet), the tracking of individual stars moving around the supermassive black hole (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supermassive_black_hole) at the centre of the Milky Way, and observations of the afterglow of the furthest known gamma-ray burst.[3] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Very_Large_Telescope#cite_note-vlthandout-3)

[logroller]

I was aware of it...still think the name is redundantly simple. Is it a large telescope? No. It's a very large telescope. I would have preferred the so large telescope. That way one would ask, how large? VERY large. :laugh:
Not saying it isn't very large, just that its a dumb name.

[Voted4Reagan]

Maybe the Europeans have a bad case of TELESCOPE ENVY...

[aboutime]

Maybe the Europeans have a bad case of TELESCOPE ENVY...


Wonder if VLT is similar to MBT? "Mighty Big Telescope".

Why does this topic have to become another of Robert's reasons to ARGUE?

Not everyone knows everything Robert insists everyone should know.
So, when someone doesn't know what Robert knows. The argument MUST begin until Robert,
in his PERFECTION...tells us everything we need to know. Even if we really don't care.

It's like asking someone "Do you have the time?"

And if we asked Robert that question.

He would tell us HOW THE CLOCK WORKS.

[Robert A Whit]

I was aware of it...still think the name is redundantly simple. Is it a large telescope? No. It's a very large telescope. I would have preferred the so large telescope. That way one would ask, how large? VERY large. :laugh:
Not saying it isn't very large, just that its a dumb name.

As you will or have noted, this turns out to be one more thread for the PERFECT Abouttime to try to turn to crap by whining.

I suspect you looked this telescope up and learned it is not one telescope, but several linked together. Somebody in Europe, I hazard a guess, chose the name.

It is is in Chile. I don't much mind what they call it. Or rather them.

[Robert A Whit]

Wonder if VLT is similar to MBT? "Mighty Big Telescope".

Why does this topic have to become another of Robert's reasons to ARGUE?

Not everyone knows everything Robert insists everyone should know.
So, when someone doesn't know what Robert knows. The argument MUST begin until Robert,
in his PERFECTION...tells us everything we need to know. Even if we really don't care.

It's like asking someone "Do you have the time?"

And if we asked Robert that question.

He would tell us HOW THE CLOCK WORKS.

And yet the perfect About time wastes his time complaining about guess who?

The guy he says he has no problems with.

Well, were that true, he would shut his face about Robert.

[logroller]

As you will or have noted, this turns out to be one more thread for the PERFECT Abouttime to try to turn to crap by whining.

I suspect you looked this telescope up and learned it is not one telescope, but several linked together. Somebody in Europe, I hazard a guess, chose the name.

It is is in Chile. I don't much mind what they call it. Or rather them.
I once got on a research binge on telescopes. I guess there's an engineering limit to size of a mirror that can be made. There's some uber special process involving a honeycomb matrix frame that's the inserted with individual pieces of glass which is then fused into one huge piece of glass and then polished, then coated with widgetonium or some such reflective material yada yada, polished some more. Anyways, 8.x meters-- that's the max. So they have to use multiple collectors and then supercomputers combine the image which then takes months to analyze. Guess with all the technological demands they didn't have time to use a thesaurus.

[Robert A Whit]

I once got on a research binge on telescopes. I guess there's an engineering limit to size of a mirror that can be made. There's some uber special process involving a honeycomb matrix frame that's the inserted with individual pieces of glass which is then fused into one huge piece of glass and then polished, then coated with widgetonium or some such reflective material yada yada, polished some more. Anyways, 8.x meters-- that's the max. So they have to use multiple collectors and then supercomputers combine the image which then takes months to analyze. Guess with all the technological demands they didn't have time to use a thesaurus.

Though I have two telescopes, they are not large. One is run by the computer.

Very interesting stuff you posted.

Do you happen to know where the largest single mirror is?

[Robert A Whit]

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/23/Telescopes_Size_and_Year_Built.png/799px-Telescopes_Size_and_Year_Built.png