The names might sound as if they were from some unpublished short story by Douglas Adams, but after having to abandon its plans to build the "Overwhelmingly Large Telescope" the European Organisation for Astronomical Research in the Southern Hemisphere, ESO, curbed its visions and is going to build the "Extremely Large Telescope" instead.
From ESO's website
At a recent meeting ESO’s main governing body, the Council, gave the green light for the construction of the European Extremely Large Telescope (E-ELT) in two phases. Spending of around one billion euros has been authorised for the first phase, which will cover the construction costs of a fully working telescope with a suite of powerful instruments and first light targeted in ten years time. It will enable tremendous scientific discoveries in the fields of exoplanets, the stellar composition of nearby galaxies and the deep Universe. The largest ESO contract ever, for the telescope dome and main structure, will be placed within the next year.
The E-ELT will be a 39-metre aperture optical and infrared telescope sited on Cerro Armazones in the Chilean Atacama Desert, 20 kilometres from ESO’s Very Large Telescope on Cerro Paranal. It will be the world’s largest “eye on the sky”.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 05 2014, @11:58PM
When the project inevitably goes over budget due to embezzlement, sell the almost completely finished telescope to the Americans, who will launch it into orbit and point it at the Earth. Americans need to know what brand of grapefruit grandma ate for breakfast! Their national security depends on it.
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Saturday December 06 2014, @12:53AM
Completely wrong. They need to know if the plebs will continue to accept being exploited or will start to discuss dissent.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 06 2014, @01:04AM
No. They need to know whether grandma is illegally growing grapefruits in her backyard instead of buying FDA approved branded grapefruits from an American corporation. They need to know whether the dirty brown people who grow grapefruits for their corporate masters are discussing dissent.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Saturday December 06 2014, @12:57AM
If that makes them develop the ability to send to LEO objects that are 39 metre in diameter, thousands of tons, and extremely fragile, it might be a good thing for space exploration...
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Saturday December 06 2014, @01:04AM
Info already available on FB (not that it would matter for US spooks).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 06 2014, @01:07AM
Grandma doesn't use Facebook herself, you fool. NSA needs to watch her so they can update her Facebook status for her own good.
(Score: 1) by theronb on Saturday December 06 2014, @04:25AM
And in focusing on that, the "intelligence community" will totally miss the signs of impending important stuff like they did with the first WTC bombing, the fall of Communism, 9/11, Arab Spring, etc, etc, etc.
(Score: 1) by fritsd on Saturday December 06 2014, @12:55PM
You're such a pessimist! American grapefruits are pollinated by American bees, rendering this surveillance problem completely obsolete in a few years.
In a few years, grandmas can be seen climbing trees with small paintbrushes every spring...
(Score: 2) by Subsentient on Saturday December 06 2014, @01:07AM
http://xkcd.com/1294/ [xkcd.com]
"It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society." -Jiddu Krishnamurti
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 06 2014, @01:12AM
XKCD.......my god......it's.....it's.....full of shit!
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Saturday December 06 2014, @01:02PM
Filling out the ellipses in your comment:
And full of superfluous dots in your ellipses, one might add.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Saturday December 06 2014, @01:46AM
Budget crushing telescope ;)
i heard that large science projects are used to finance a lot of other science. Thus "overruns".
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 06 2014, @01:14AM
For you to suck on!
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 06 2014, @04:12AM
hey guys, is this an all crazy crackpot idee or instaed of gather more light make the ccd element super sensitive? like you have to build it deep underground in complete darkness and for testing you point it upwards 20 meters under ground.
so we assume normal light doesnt penetrate 20 meters thru solid granite ... because we havent found and think this sensitive because all the natural accuring (sic) stuff that can do it has been burned to a crisp by the people digging it out of the ground to look at it in ... broad daylight?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 06 2014, @05:36AM
I majored in Astronomy at Caltech, but changed my major to Physics when I realized I wanted to build telescopes far more than to look through them. What Astronomers really look it in their work really isn't that interesting just to look at, however I like fiddling with weird tools.
Ironically, at the time no one was building telescopes. No one, anywhere. The construction of large telescopes started up again after I left the Institute.
So why don't the European Astronomers build their European telescope in Europe? It's not like they don't have mountains there.
Now of course we do want to study the skies of the Southern hemisphere. I'm not saying that we shouldn't have telescopes down-under, just that there are lots of good places to put them in the northern hemisphere, with the result that Sergey and Brin won't be hosting wild orgies aboard their Moffett Field Naval Air Station-based 747 as they ferry the scientists back and forth from europe to chile.
(Score: 2) by bd on Saturday December 06 2014, @11:32AM
So why don't the European Astronomers build their European telescope in Europe? It's not like they don't have mountains there.
Most sites in Europe do have serious problems with light pollution (I think Spain has some good spots though).
The Keck Observatory is already on the northern hemisphere, and will get its own 30 m telescope by the time the 39 m ELT is built.
It would not make sense to build two telescopes of such size up north at the same time and none in the south.
Furthermore, the Atacama desert is just such a perfect spot for a telescope, it would be a shame not to have the biggest one there.
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Saturday December 06 2014, @01:10PM
I've heard that most people using the large telescopes don't actually go there these times; they just send their measurement parameters over the internet and get their data back the same way.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 06 2014, @09:53AM
err, complexity was also cited as an issue. The jump from about ~10 meters to a 39 meter telescope is already quite large. There is no telling what sort of unforeseen problems there would have been with a jump straight to 100 meters.
(Score: 2) by dx3bydt3 on Saturday December 06 2014, @02:47PM
The light gathering capabilities of this thing will be unbelievable.
At 1194 m^2 if it were pointed at the full moon you could set fires with the concentrated moonlight.
The full moon casts .01Watt/M^2, which is about 1/100,000 the intensity of sunlight, but the area of this thing will be so vast that it'd be equivalent to a 120mm (4.7") diameter magnifier with sunlight.
The brightness of the moon makes astronomical observations impractical anyway, so they might as well have fun on the full moon nights like this one.
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Saturday December 06 2014, @02:56PM
More interestingly, would the resolution be high enough to see the landing site of Apollo 11?
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 2) by dx3bydt3 on Saturday December 06 2014, @03:51PM
Actually, if it weren't for the atmosphere it could probably do it.
The Apollo lunar module is roughly 5m high, and over 4m wide.
The theoretical resolving power of a 39m scope (neglecting the atmosphere) is about .003 arcseconds
At the moon's distance from us, there are about 1750m per arcsecond. This scope could, in theory resolve details about 5.25m.
The lander and its shadow would be larger than this, so if we got rid of the atmospheric distortions you'd stand a very good chance of spotting it.
(Score: 2) by martyb on Saturday December 06 2014, @06:13PM
For even more amazement, take a look at this graphic which is referenced on the Overwhelmingly Large Telescope (OWL) Wikipedia link: Comparison optical telescope primary mirrors [wikipedia.org] which shows that this (E-ELT) telescope would nearly fit in the *hole* in the center of the mirror for the proposed OWL telescope.
Given the technical challenges and price, ESO decided against building OWL at this time. One would imagine that once they do get the E-ELT up and running, with the lessons they learned from building it, they might then go on and attempt the OWL scope or something like it.
On an entirely separate note, I'm curious about one thing: how ever do they keep the mirrors clean from, say, bird droppings or dust accumulations? Given the construction tolerances on the mirrors, I find it hard to imagine they simply rinse it off with water?
Wit is intellect, dancing.
(Score: 2) by dx3bydt3 on Saturday December 06 2014, @06:46PM
Well one thing going for big telescopes is the location, they're up at high altitudes usually in desert conditions. They are probably above lots of crap in the air like pollen, and it isn't prime bird habitat, so birds probably aren't depositing much on them either. Especially when the mirror is only exposed at night.
I was curious what they do for cleaning the mirrors of current big telescopes and a search turned up an amusing answer [gemini.edu] for one of them: The Gemini North Telescope on Mauna Kea.
"We've found the combination of the natural sponges and horse soap to be the most efficient way to get the mirror surface completely clean"
(Score: 1) by Mesa Mike on Sunday December 07 2014, @01:32AM
Well, I guess they would only open the shutter at night when birds aren't flying.
As for cleaning the mirror, here's how they do it [gemini.edu] at Gemini.
(Score: 1) by Mesa Mike on Sunday December 07 2014, @01:45AM
Err... OK. I guess I should pay attention to the whole comment, lest I link to the same thing the parent did...
OTOH, here's a video [youtube.com] of the cleaning and recoating process