A glass of its own

摘要

A UK-designed observatory telescope, which is expected to be the world's largest and fastest for ground-based survey work, is nearing completion with the construction of a 4.1m diameter primary mirror. The mirror is currently being installed on the Visible and Infrared Survey Telescope for Astronomy (VISTA) at the mountain-top Paranal Observatory in Chile. The primary mirror will be coupled with a small infrared camera on the telescope for initial testing prior to installing the main camera next month.