Terrestrial telescope gets images as sharp as Hubble's

According to the European Southern Observatory (ESO), its Chile-based Very Large Telescope (VLT) obtained images of space through a new mode of adaptive optics called laser tomography, and they turned out to be as clear as those of space telescopes, like Hubble.

This new technology, working with the MUSE Narrow Field Mode instrument and the GALACSI adaptive optics module, can correct atmospheric turbulence at different elevation levels.

Laser tomography consists of the attachment of four laser guide stars to the VLT's main telescope # 4, which projects intense orange light 30 cm across the sky, stimulating the sodium atoms in the upper atmosphere. Thus, artificial guide stars are created, which determine the turbulence caused by the atmosphere in order to calculate corrections at a rate of 1, 000 times per second, so that the mirror of main telescope # 4 changes its shape to compensate for the deformations caused by the atmosphere. thus correcting distorted light.

This is only possible in MUSE Narrow Field Mode, which occurs in a smaller region than the Wide Mode view. Of course, in the latter, only atmospheric turbulence can be corrected up to 1 kilometer above the telescope, not its total, as laser tomography achieves.

In this way, adaptive optics make it possible for terrestrial telescopes to provide very sharp and clear images, comparable to those obtained by large space telescopes. And the idea is for astronomers to use this technology to better and more closely study celestial phenomena such as black holes, star clusters, supernovae or even planet and objects from our own Solar System.

In addition to MUSE, another instrument that uses adaptive optics, the GRAAL, is already operating with its HAWK-I infrared camera.

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Terrestrial telescope gets images as sharp as Hubble's via TecMundo