Each of the four individual telescopes in the ESA’s Very Large Telescope are, by themselves, very capable. But by working together, they’re supposed to be able to link up to effectively form one single massive telescope, and for the first time, this has actually worked.
The European Southern Observatory has, in the past, linked the two farthest apart telescopes in the VLT array together to form a virtual telescope with a mirror 130 meters wide. Adding in the two additional telescopes won’t make this virtual mirror any larger, but it will improve the resolution of the instrument along with its ability to see things that are dimmer, farther away, or both: the “zooming” capability increases by a factor of 20 when all four telescopes team up.
via DVICE
February 3, 2012
