• Question: What is the biggest telescope called that you have ever worked with and what was the zoom?

    Asked by Meganthemarsbar to Julian, Jane, Hugh, Helen, Heather on 11 Nov 2014. This question was also asked by 362spaa25.
    • Photo: Julian Onions

      Julian Onions answered on 11 Nov 2014:

      Not very big. I have 125mm telescope of my own, and use the 280mm telescope at the university sometimes, but jealous of those that get to use the VLT and similar!
      Zoom is not always important in a telescope – more important is the resolution that it can obtain (which depends on the size of the mirror) and also of course it’s light gathering power.

    • Photo: Heather Campbell

      Heather Campbell answered on 11 Nov 2014:

      The biggest telescope I’ve used is the 3.6m New Technology Telescope in, La Silla, Chile. This was really good fun, and a great place to visit.

      But my favourite telescope is the Isaac Newton Telescope (INT) in La Palma (one of the Canary Islands), which is only 2.6m but there you actually get to operate the telescope yourself, even fill up the cryostat (the part that cools the camera) with liquid nitrogen!

    • Photo: Helen Johnson

      Helen Johnson answered on 12 Nov 2014:

      I’ve used this telescope – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uVCFc0ZiRt8 – the VLT (Very Large Telescope – yes astronomers are a bit weird) which is in the Atacama desert in Chile. It’s one of the most sophisticated telescopes ever built. There are actually 4 large telescopes which can work on their own, or work together to achieve more detailed observations (a higher resolution).
      Work has now started on building the E-ELT (European Extremely Large Telescope – I know, I know.. weird astronomers). This will be absolutely HUGE when it’s completed, and will revolutionise how we see space.

      We can actually use giant clusters of galaxies to see distant galaxies more clearly. This is an effect called ‘gravitational lensing’. As Einstein predicted, if something has enough of a gravitational field it will bend rays of light around it – resulting in pretty images like this: . The effect means galaxies behind the ‘lensing’ object will appear brighter, and magnified.

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