So they built a very large telescope. What did they call it? Well, it's called VLT, for Very Large Telescope. Then, now they are building another one, even bigger. Its name? ELT, Extremely Large Telescope. There is something really charming in these simplistic and utterly descriptive naming-conventions. I'm just waiting for the one named SLTttLO, for Somewhat Larger Telescope than the Last One.
SpaceRip is that kind of documentary channel we miss from the TV. I'd like to find another such amazing RU-vid channel for History documentaries. I'm sick of pawn shops and gold hunters!
You mean like it was before? This sort of stuff was on TV years ago. But they slowly took it out and replaced it with crap. And it's not just in the science world. Scifi, movies, music. I haven't watched TV for more than 8 minutes in 7 years now. There's no point.
aserta So true. I haven't had any broadcast/program television for 10 years now. I do watch TV shows (netflix, TPB)..I just don't need the PROGRAMMING, because I'm not a robot. I'm fully capable of deciding what actual show to watch instead of which trough to watch from.
aserta I'm glad I'm not the only one who has noticed this, when I talk to my family and some of my friends about it they look at me like I'm from another planet.
Tyger Fuhr Well, u know, sometimes the ouvious hides behind its own. Didnt touch tv in years, except for large sport events and such. Keep being interrested in what u like. I´m an electrician, but i cant stop for one day looking up new findings in astronomy and space exploration on the internet. Internet ftw!
their size is mostly limited due to difficulty with transporting them, which is why the new Magellan telescope they're building has 7 mirror parts, each weighing about 20 tons. Their weight and size become a big problem when moving them from factory to observatory if they were all one big mirror.
I really do hope that when the EELT is built, it's housed in a polished aluminium dome like the CG images of it. If they do and they need a guy to live up there 24/7 to polish it, pass my name on.
Very enjoyable video! It is mind boggling the engineering involved in mirror making and the platforms required to support them to track flawlessly and reliably.
Hey spacerip, I think a cool video idea would be the selection process for locations of these large telescopes. Where is the most ideal spot to place a land-based telescope? Are there struggles where human produced light blocks some of the view? Thanks for the awesome videos!
Desert mountain tops are ideal, low humidity/clouds, thin atmosphere, away from city lights. But of course building in such remote remote locations has its own problems. New roads need to be made and specialized transport equipment etc. not to mention the poor personnel who have to work and commute there lol.
Thank you man for saying this. I 100% agree with you about this musical audio pollution in these videos. The music is nice on it's own, but when someone is talking, it obliterates the spoken word. These video makers have no clue about people who are trying to listen to the speaker. I'm guessing these video producers care more about the music than the astronomy, and that the producers don't care about science what so ever.
audio post production engineer here.... in the very unlikely event whoever mixed this reads this comment thread.. I don't think the music is too loud. I think we may have yet another earwax problem. I enjoyed the video.
Light collecting capability of a mirror depends, of course, on its surface. But resolution, which is the ability to separate tiny details, depends on the distance between its edges. So two mirrors one kilometer apart would have the same resolution as a one kilometer-wide mirror. This resolution applies only in the direction of a line between the two mirrors; in the perpendicular direction, the resolution depends ob the width of the mirrors. Linking mirrors together to get a single image is a difficult task called interferometry. The shorter the wavelength, the more difficult it is to precisely synchronise the waves from each mirror to get a clear image. Which is why the first applications were done with ratio telescopes that observe long wavelengths (much longer than the wavelengths of light). Presently, it is possible to link radio telescopes that are at the antipodes of each other, thus providing the resolution of a mirror that would be as large as planet Earth. There are projects for putting mirrors in orbit (like at the Lagrange points) oriented to direct their light t a common focus to provide angular resolutions in the order of a millionth of an arc second, like that of a mirror that would be 20 to 50 times the diameter of the Earth.
Exciting prospects in astronomy for the near future. Can't wait to see how far back in time and how far can the Extremely Large Telescope reach. The potential for producing fabulous deep sky images will be a reality and to think this ground based telescope will come on line after the James Webb Space Telescope and between the two of them and other huge astronomical instruments, we certainly are fortunate to be alive during this period of discovery and science. The age of astronomy is upon us, but the downside that has yet to be recognized is the proliferation of LED lighting, the greatest source of light pollution and threat to ground based astronomy. I consider myself an astronomy enthusiast, an amateur astrophotographer and the effects of LED lighting is already damaging our ability to image deep sky objects and it has been said we are losing our night sky darkness at a rate of 2% to 6% a year. At this rate it won't be long before amatuer astronomy will be doomed, just when it has been gaining traction in popularity, not just with older people, but young people as well are taking up an interest in astronomy like no other time and that is because high grade equipment is not only much better, but more affordable. Light pollution has other downsides besides making it more difficult to pursue visual and imaging astronomy on the amateur level, but it is also causing an impact on the professional level too. Most all of the biggest ground based telescopes are located on high mountaintops for obvious reasons, but even there the reach of light pollution is encroaching. But, the notion of losing our dark skies has biological implications as well and much research has been done on this topic and the negative impacts are far and wide. If you care about this and want to know more, I would look up the IDA, International Dark Sky Association and read what they have to say regarding the loss of our night time and the biological cycles associated with it. The problem with LED lighting is not only are they much brighter, but the wavelength they produce are difficult if not impossible to filter out. With other traditional forms of light that occupy a certain space on a light wavelength graph, to which special astronomical filters can block, at the same time the same filters allow good light (or photons) to pass to eventually hit the camera filter. The LED light wavelength is all over the place and hard to nail down in terms of filtering it. However, if they are shielded, directed down, dimmed at night, etc., they can be mitigated to tolerable levels I believe. Education of how LEDs affect us should get more exposure.
We miss Spacerip TV documentary channel type. So far, a documentary I want to find such an amazing RU-vid channel. I'm sick of pawn shops and gold hunters!
Since the Resolution of a Telescope depands on it's effective Diameter (the points that are furthest apart) and its light-collecting abillity depends on it's overall surface-area, its possible do "make" telescopes with a "diameter" of the earths orbit. You observe the object at a point in time, and observe the same objects exactly half a year later, so that you measure at the opposing point of the earths orbit, and add the data up with a specific algorythm similar to the processing in interlinkend telescopes. Of course this is only possible with objects that move next to nothing at all within this half year, so it only works for things like fixstars or galaxies+nebulars outside of our local galaxy-group etc. (don't now specific distance, but imo you'll get the point). Also I wonder why they havn't at least mentioned the gravitational lensing effect, since this also kinda works as a HUGE-ass telescope (dependig of the diameter of the object that causes the lensing object, but at least it have to be of "normal" sun-like diameter and mass. And finally they did't properly explained so called "active optics" like the one tested in the NTT either...
Designed further sized primary mirror. One of my jobs as uni technician - repair vacuum deposition unit - so with that experience - mirror surface not a problem - even cleaning between re surfacing -, light (pun) as a feather
Can’t wait untill the ESO produces the first, detailed pictures from the Apollo landing sites. This way the moonhoaxers will be shutt their cakeholes....forever...
Experts please answer me... why we cant build large thin mirrors with some less weight material behind it for support, like few centimeter thick mirror??
My opinion: with multiple sensing stations, and good time-keeping (to adjust for speed of light lag in communications), you could have a telescope of any 'size'...even as wide as the Solar System itself. After all, there is no such thing as a perfectly continuous light-gathering surface. The very cones in your eye are discrete objects, separated by some distance. Radio telescopes have routinely been operated on the principle of separated sensing stations. Visual telescopes of such design also exist.
Very cool. I am already curious about the pictures the gigantic mirror will deliver. Possibly the Video could have added, how the astronomers cope with the thickness variations of our Atmosphere. Is the ELT capable of adjusting for these fluctuations? If not, is its purpose the examination of faint galaxies? Or do they hope also for better resolution?
It depends on how large the universe is, if the universe is finite then the answer is the size of the universe, if it is infinite then the answer is infinite
Can't wait until they link two telescopes as an interferometer at opposite sides of earth's orbit,maybe see details on extra-solar planets or a mile diameter telescope in space like the Webb.
Mentions only one interferometer-type telescope. Not as much collecting area as the virtual diameter would suggest, but a mirror a thousand miles across with an effective area of several square kilometers may be operational someday. Main problem is coordination between elements... best done on a solid surface, like the Moon or an asteroid. If you're less sensitive about distance or apporximate resolution, someday I'm sure we will have a network of hundreds of 10m-class satellites beyond Neptune. Not going to resolve the surface of an alien planet, but will be able to see them as specks from hundreds of light years away.
The ELT will probably be the largest earth based optical telescope that will ever be built. The future larger telescopes will all be space based as it is actually much easier to design very large structures for space than on earth. On earth gravity and wind are the major factors the structure has to fight against. The reason we are not yet building telescopes in space is the ridiculously high cost of just putting stuff up into space, let alone sending people to put that stuff together. That however looks like it will be changing rapidly in the next decade as expendable launch systems become extinct and are replaced with reusable systems such as Spacex's Starship, something which could have and should have happened decades ago. An active mirror could be built out of a large number of small mirror assemblies design to easily interlock with each other through joints that are adjustable by servos to maintain the overall shape required, and same could be done for a central tower to which the imager would be mounted. Small here means up top 8 meters or so. One could probably fit a dozen or two of these in a single Starhip fairing. The telescope could even become operational with only a few such elements and then build them up gradually over time increasing its aperture.
Noting that some ground based telescopes have, for certain views, been better than the Hubble ST, I'm going to be comparing the EELT to the James Webb ST. I'm eager to see the discoveries of these new machines.
I heard about these conferences at Spie.org on the same subject. It was the Magellan Telescope in Chile. If the resolution is gonna be 15×'s greater, does the S/N~(A*n/E)0.5/(FWHM) formula still apply?
The forthcoming 39 meters telescope will give similar images of the nearly thirty years old Humble telescope. If something goes wrong with a ground telescope there is always the possibility of repairs. However with the forthcoming Space Webb infrared telescope any repair will be nearly impossible.
is it just me or is Hubble and its wimpy 1.4 meter or whatever optical mirror and high f rating just so damn breathtaking...its still mindblowing today......and I still say the way to go is a 10 meter space telescope or several smaller ones space apart as to duplicate a larger collection area, or smaller depending on what details you wish to obtain......yes launching into space is expensive, but so is all that active optics servos and wave reducers extenders, and the massive computing power to control the huge collection area! Cmon usa get your shit together! At least launch James web space telescope....that was supposed to have been is space years ago, lol....
4 years later James Webb Space Telescope is nowhere to be seen... but hey at least USA is ready to start new war and we all know how badly Middle East needs another oil producing country in ruins. :P
Biały , I saw the James Webb a couple of months ago at Johnson Space Center. It’s sad that we had to build it like a school ground gym set, by holding bake sales and making sure ever congressman got some part of it built in his district. But until you see it in person it’s hard to grasp the scale and the intricacy of the design. The heat shields are giving them fits but they are essential and the design must work perfectly or the telescope will be pretty much useless. Unlike the Hubble, there is no way to do a servicing mission. So it has to be perfect. Now perhaps in 2020 when a launch costs a few million bucks, they’ll take on the concept of building four to be sure that one works, but that wasn’t the design and construction principle used for the JWST.
As telescope gets bigger, have the materials improve to be printed like those 3d printing? Not talking in a small scale, but in a larger type machine? Knowing that the largest known commercial type would like take forever to print. Even the hand size objects take a very long time to print.
I know that A/O technology takes out the sputter caused by Earth's atmosphere. Hubble's primary Mirror is 2.5m. I think the ground based 39m E.E.L.T. will be awesome! Almost scary what you could expect to see.
Looking through the telescope into the Universe is like a bacteria looking up at us. The vision is simply not far enough to make out objects way beyond light travels and reaches us.
interesting. What would be if one segment 1.5 m wide consist of 2 segments 0.75 m wide. 2 segments consist of 4 segment 187,5 cm. 4 segments consist of 8 segments 23,4375 cm. 8 consist of 16. 16 consist of 32. 32 consist of 64. 64 consist of 128. 128 consist of 256. 256 consist of 512. 512 consist of 1024. =)
Terrestrial telescopes are fundamentally limited by gravity, the fight between size/weight and the warping due to gravity. Is there a fundamental limiter in microgravity? Right away I can think of the need to precisely control the overall mirror such that it preserves the incoming light wavefront. Having a kilometers-wide mirror is useless if vibrations cause the mirror to distort the wavefront from moment to moment. Segmented mirror with lasers to measure and correct for changing relative positions? The possible observations that a kilometers-wide mirror enables! Then the resolutions possible if the E-ELT interferometer tech could be extended to a fleet of space-based telescopes! To not only confirm extra-terrestrial life but to count the hairs on ET's head!
Lenard Segnitz even if you would have a telescope interferometer in the asteroid belt (about 6 AU or 900 million kilometers), you'd only be able to get resolution of several centimeters for the closest stars(planetary systems), and that's not even talking into account light gathering capabilities. So, definitely no ET faces on the photos made by a telescope, regardless of how big it is.
what I think you mean is that for all the extremly delicate mechanism , the amount paid - the title seems so trite - quite agree . Got any suggestions for names
@@drjwilber Instead of the E-ELT, (Extra Large Telescope) for example, it could be called 'The 39 and 1/3 Meter Optical telescope at Cerro Macon, Chile."...or maybe 'The BFEC, the Big Fgn Eyeball in Chile'. I found it amusing that the binocular telescope that the Vatican funded, The LBT, was called LUCIFER. I found that one rather suitably named.
What about the giant Magellan telescope , im pretty sure it's bigger there making it with 7 segments at 26ft in diameter each , that's bigger than one segment at 36 ft or whAtever the diameter is
I guess a telescope can be as large as the Earth's orbit, or even more, if your algorithms are able to correct for that kind of time/space difference. Exciting times.
First: It is not the glass which reflects. The glass is covered with a layer of aluminum, which does the reflection. The glass itself is just the carrier material. So why glass? Because it can easily be processed to the exact shape needed down to the required precission of nanometers. But more important: because you can create glass mixtures which do not expand or shrink when temperature changes. And this is something you really want. The shape of the reflecting surface must be held constant, no matter what is going on. Adaptive optics can correct for minor devitions. But there are limits to this technique. We are talking about variations in the nanometer scale, which need to be corrected for. Variations due to thermal expansion are way to large for this.
One wonders how such things get built. Easy, you just need someone in charge to sign on the line that says, “Do it!” Other, smarter people will figure out a way. By the way, what happened to the OWL telescope? (OverWhelmingly Large)
could the very large mirrors be made out of a carbon fiber honey comb structure with a thin layer of highly reflective material over it, and then a layer of super clear epoxy resin type substance to protect it? It would be amazingly light, strong and the clear protective layer can be polished just the same way glass is polished + repairs may be possible or a entire new surface if needed Also, it could be designed to flex (if needed) much better than glass because carbon fiber can be weaved in many different ways to perform different tasks Does anyone know if this has been attempted?
They've been trying to make CF mirrors for about 20 years now. The problem is that the CF weave tends to show up in the final grinding, rendering the mirror useless. That's why the James Webb uses beryllium instead. Eventually they'll get it worked out but there's probably a fair amount of R&D in the matrix material before that gets solved.
If we cannot solve the light pollution problem, which is the easiest kind of pollution to deal with, how can we Possibly hope to solve other more difficult to tackle kinds of pollution?
Seeking permission to use this video, to be adapted into a dome format for a discussion of telescopes and aperture evolution, inside a planetarium dome. --- Rathnasree, Nehru Planetarium, New Delhi, India
On second thought, Goldman Sach, JP Morgan, BOA....etc each of them should fund 1 EELT......put ur money to good use instead of greed....these guys at EELT are cutting budget while the banks got bailout.....wth....
its a matter of combining perfectly timed light waves from telescopes all over the earth and space......not one big scope........as this is insanely expensive and your best images will be from several areas spread out as far as possible to cover vantage points with the farthest range.....then piece in the middle by collecting data on similar software covering as much of the electromagnetic spectrum as possible and combining it to give a highly detailed image, sort of like radio interferometry.
"I'm sure that won't stop the engineers from conceiving of ways of building even larger telescopes". How DARE you not mention the overwhelmingly large telescope. Let's be real there, the main bottleneck to larger telescopes is money, and has been for a while.
If we use photon size or resolution then there are no need for size because even with the size of about few inches are enough for we could zoom up a trillion time that mean it could see an object 200 billion miles size as a pixel on our telescope