Construction of the next generation space observation facility "Huge Magellan Telescope" began, its image movies and images are being released

A very large ground telescope that observes from the ground in cooperation with the "space telescope" floating in outer space "Huge Magellan Telescope(Giant Magellan Telescope,GMT) "Construction was started in Chile in South America. This telescope is a combination of 7 circular mirrors with a diameter of 8.4 meters and a diameter of 24.5 metersSynthetic mirrorConstruction is to be promoted aiming at the start of operation in 2022, and a lot of images and movies rendering the image at the completion are being upgraded on the GMT site.

Giant Magellan Telescope
http://www.gmto.org/


Here is a movie introducing the structure of GMT in an easy to understand manner. The situation at the time of completion by CG is drawn.

Full concept animation of the GMT - YouTube


A white cylindrical building built on the top of a brown mountain, this is the appearance of "Giant Magellan Telescope (GMT)".


GMT is located in northern ChileAtacama DesertIt is built on the summit of approximately 2,400 meters above sea level. It is said that building on a dry highland prevents the influence of light due to atmospheric water vapor to the minimum.


A cylindrical building opens up and you can see a telescope with huge mirrors in it.


A scene like a scene of science fiction movies. The mirror that gathered like a petal has a black cover ... ...


With the movement of the arm, the cover is folded and the mirror is revealed.


The mirror which showed the appearance was deformed as a whole into a shape where the center was concave. By doing this, it will become a gigantic mirror that gathers light from outer space.


Looking at the side of the table with the mirror from the side looks like this. The lower part of the platform has a huge wheel shape that allows you to freely change the angle.


When the camera advances to the center of the table, it enters a place like a small room where equipment is contained ....


There are things like a number of measuring instruments there. In particular, a round mirror is installed in the center part, and it seems that the light collected by the seven mirrors is finally focused on this part.


A computer housed in a rack seems to be installed downstairs of the measuring instrument.


Full view of the table with the primary mirror. Compared with people in the lower left, I can understand the enormity.


The state of the seven mirrors drawn with CG is the surface of the trussle anyhow.


The light collected by the seven mirrors is collected by the auxiliary mirror supported by the three columns, reflected again, and sent to the measuring instrument. This secondary mirror changes the surface shape to offset the "fluctuation" of the atmosphereAdaptive opticsA mechanism called "Mechanism" has been adopted, making it possible to observe with high precision even on the earth. Compensation optics cancels image displacement caused by atmospheric fluctuation by slightly changing the surface angle of the mirror surface, and that mechanism is sometimes described as "noise-canceling headphones" Thing.


The gigantic Magellan telescope is the successor to the Hubble Space Telescope and is planned to be launched in 2018James Webb Space TelescopeIt is planned to perform space observation in cooperation with the project. In the past, it was mainstream to operate a space telescope like the Hubble Space Telescope alone, but as of 2015 observations that combine ground telescopes like GMT are considered mainstream.


At the GMT site, many images and images are also being released at the Gallery section. By the time the operation starts in 2020, I am looking forward to see what kind of universe is going to be visible.

Gallery | Giant Magellan Telescope
http://www.gmto.org/gallery/