The Europeans are building the 42 meters E-ELT. So this thing is already a second ranking project. Not to mention if build it will be finished in 2018 or 2019 while the European E-ELT will begin operation in 2016. 2 years sooner!!!
I wonder how much disturbance there is to the light path caused by the dust and gases that are still circulating in our solar system. What aperture would be needed in solar orbiting telescope before this gas determines the limit of resolving power?
to compensate for the atmospheric fluctuation, Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT) will take use of the Advanced Optics (AO) technology. AO utilizes an amorphous mirror that moves at 670th of a second to compensate for the distortion caused by the atmosphere. The result is the resolution that is ten times shaper than one by the existing system. (far superior than the Hubble Telescope out in space as a matter of fact) AO has been tested at Keck on Mauna Kea the largest ground based telescope we have yet
I was asking about gas in the solar system disk instead of the Earth's atmosphere but maybe you can answer some different questions. If the huge ground based telescopes like the 10 metre Keck telescope are reaching diffraction limited resolutions, why are the most detailed pics of Pluto, Charon, Ceres, and many small but deep sky objects photographed by the HST instead of Keck, VLT, or LBT?
Remember, there is a lot of empty space out there and the debris floating in space is only a fraction of our galaxy so there's a very little chance that the debris would NOT ALWAYS coincide with our line of sight.
The limited resolution is the maximum resolution that can be reached and can only be achieved at IDEAL situations.
In terms of diffraction resolution limit, Keck actually has a higher limit than HST purely because it is a larger telescope than HST. (10m vs. 2.5m)
In reality, most interferences occur due to the atmospheric fluctuations than interstellar gas&debris and that is the reason why the actual resolution at Keck is much lower than HST. If we can build a larger telescope on ground with AO (for example, TMT @ d=30m), we can achieve a higher resolution than that of HST.
Of course, some observations may be limited due to the nature of a ground based telescope like Ultraviolet imaging. (most UV rays are filtered through the O-zone layer before they reach the surface of the Earth). Orbiting telescopes have put a lot of strains on the budget and it's possible that we may never see another one. But I suppose that's something we have to deal with as scientists.
SIM will likely perform much better than this 30 meter telescope because SIM could have the diffraction limited resolution of a 9 metre telescope. Even with active and adaptive optics, the 30 metre will likely have resolution less than a 5 metre scope. The only real obvious demonstrations I know of where ground based telescopes outperformed space ones was when the CHARA Array photographed the surfaces of stars like Altair and Keck beat the HST by 50% for resolution of Ceres.
The Europeans are building the 42 meters E-ELT. So this thing is already a second ranking project. Not to mention if build it will be finished in 2018 or 2019 while the European E-ELT will begin operation in 2016. 2 years sooner!!!
EUROSUN1 2 years ago
@EUROSUN1
Hey, I totally just youtubed that, it looks so cool!
xEllenMellenx 1 year ago
SAVE MAUNA KEA
NO MORE TELESCOPES
hrr420 2 years ago
FOAD!
Build more telescopes!
playloud90278 2 years ago
u must be another dumb haole who has no idea of respect for the land that they live on
hrr420 2 years ago
I respect the universe we live in, and it is easier to see from Mauna Kea. I don't see the harm in building telescopes.
playloud90278 2 years ago
if u understand what mauna kea represents to the hawaiian people u would know what im talking about
hrr420 2 years ago
@hrr420 Right, because the feelings of a few people on a small island are more important then discovering the goddamn universe.
Airclot 2 weeks ago
Hubble's cost to date is around $10 billion dollars. This looks like it will cost a fraction as much and will be easier to upgrade...
anthonycarl2020 2 years ago
I wonder how much disturbance there is to the light path caused by the dust and gases that are still circulating in our solar system. What aperture would be needed in solar orbiting telescope before this gas determines the limit of resolving power?
joshig1983 3 years ago
to compensate for the atmospheric fluctuation, Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT) will take use of the Advanced Optics (AO) technology. AO utilizes an amorphous mirror that moves at 670th of a second to compensate for the distortion caused by the atmosphere. The result is the resolution that is ten times shaper than one by the existing system. (far superior than the Hubble Telescope out in space as a matter of fact) AO has been tested at Keck on Mauna Kea the largest ground based telescope we have yet
jahn105 3 years ago
I was asking about gas in the solar system disk instead of the Earth's atmosphere but maybe you can answer some different questions. If the huge ground based telescopes like the 10 metre Keck telescope are reaching diffraction limited resolutions, why are the most detailed pics of Pluto, Charon, Ceres, and many small but deep sky objects photographed by the HST instead of Keck, VLT, or LBT?
joshig1983 3 years ago
Remember, there is a lot of empty space out there and the debris floating in space is only a fraction of our galaxy so there's a very little chance that the debris would NOT ALWAYS coincide with our line of sight.
The limited resolution is the maximum resolution that can be reached and can only be achieved at IDEAL situations.
In terms of diffraction resolution limit, Keck actually has a higher limit than HST purely because it is a larger telescope than HST. (10m vs. 2.5m)
jahn105 3 years ago
In reality, most interferences occur due to the atmospheric fluctuations than interstellar gas&debris and that is the reason why the actual resolution at Keck is much lower than HST. If we can build a larger telescope on ground with AO (for example, TMT @ d=30m), we can achieve a higher resolution than that of HST.
jahn105 3 years ago
Of course, some observations may be limited due to the nature of a ground based telescope like Ultraviolet imaging. (most UV rays are filtered through the O-zone layer before they reach the surface of the Earth). Orbiting telescopes have put a lot of strains on the budget and it's possible that we may never see another one. But I suppose that's something we have to deal with as scientists.
jahn105 3 years ago
SIM will likely perform much better than this 30 meter telescope because SIM could have the diffraction limited resolution of a 9 metre telescope. Even with active and adaptive optics, the 30 metre will likely have resolution less than a 5 metre scope. The only real obvious demonstrations I know of where ground based telescopes outperformed space ones was when the CHARA Array photographed the surfaces of stars like Altair and Keck beat the HST by 50% for resolution of Ceres.
joshig1983 3 years ago
Great. Another big tool in the discovery of the universe.
Azorean2100 3 years ago