Very Large Telescope
The Very Large Telescope (VLT) is a facility operated by the European Southern Observatory, located on Cerro Paranal in the Atacama Desert of northern Chile. It consists of four individual telescopes, each equipped with a primary mirror that measures 8.2 meters in diameter. These optical telescopes, named Antu, Kueyen, Melipal, and Yepun (all words for astronomical objects in the Mapuche language), are generally used separately but can be combined to achieve a very high angular resolution. The VLT array is also complemented by four movable Auxiliary Telescopes (ATs) with 1.8-meter apertures.
The four Unit Telescopes that form the VLT together with the four Auxiliary Telescopes (VST at right) | |
| Alternative names | VLT |
|---|---|
| Part of | Paranal Observatory |
| Location(s) | Antofagasta Region, Chile |
| Coordinates | 24°37′38″S 70°24′15″W |
| Organization | European Southern Observatory |
| Altitude | 2,635 m (8,645 ft) |
| Observing time | 320 nights per year |
| Wavelength | 300 nm – 20 μm (N-UV, visible light, NIR, SWIR, MWIR, and LWIR) |
| First light | 1998 (for the first Unit Telescope) |
| Telescope style | astronomical observatory |
| Diameter |
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| Angular resolution | 0.002 arcsecond |
| Focal length | 120 m (393 ft 8 in) |
| Website | www |
Location of Very Large Telescope | |
| Related media on Commons | |
The VLT is capable of observing both visible and infrared wavelengths. Each individual telescope can detect objects that are roughly four billion times fainter than what can be seen with the naked eye. When all the telescopes are combined, the facility can achieve an angular resolution of approximately 0.002 arcsecond. In single telescope mode, the angular resolution is about 0.05 arcseconds.
The VLT is one of the most productive facilities for astronomy, second only to the Hubble Space Telescope in terms of the number of scientific papers produced from facilities operating at visible wavelengths. Some of the pioneering observations made using the VLT include the first direct image of an exoplanet, the tracking of stars orbiting around the supermassive black hole at the centre of the Milky Way, and observations of the afterglow of the furthest known gamma-ray burst.