VLT, and you thought your mirror was big.

[jmorgan]

Four mirrors linked up at the VLT. Now that would be some resolution to get in the back yard.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-1686...

http://www.eso.org/public/teles-instr/vlt.html

Even has a hotel. Wonder what the rates are.......

[Caruso]

There's a certain understatement in the naming of these hugely expensive scientific instruments that I find appealing and amusing in equal measure.

What are they going to call the next generation of even bigger telescope I wonder? The BFOT???

[jmorgan]

Caruso said:

The BFOT???

[carmonk]

I downloaded some of the hires ones a while ago - awesome. Example here http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Eta_Carinae.... Some are too big to load in your browser (about 500X the size of your screen!) so you have to download them and use an image viewer. Worth it, though.

[jmorgan]

Been dipping in there (and other places) for a while for desktops. When I was a nipper, as far as I was concerned a telescope was a tube with a bit of glass in it and some bloke stuck on the end looking through. This place just keeps getting better and better.

[MrAdaam]

I absolutely love this kind of stuff.

[jmorgan]

Bedazzled said:

Some of the images on the ESO site are incredible... here



Those were captured with just one of the 'scopes, I'd love to see what the combined one can do.

Hehe..... top 100 in a zip file, not seen that. 2 gigs though....