Recoating a Giant VLT Mirror

Date- Source- http://www.eso.org/public/videos/archive/category/esocast/

'Every night, all year round, the ESO Very Large Telescope, or VLT, opens its four giant eyes to scrutinise the beautiful southern skies. Each eye is a huge mirror, 8.2 metres in diameter, that gathers the light of the night sky, and reflects it into optical systems that form ultra-sharp images of the Universe. But keeping the VLT´s eyes clear requires each mirror to be cleaned and recoated occasionally, a delicate and complex procedure.'

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• esocast
• 15
• european
• southern
• observatory
• VLT

[Evi1M4chine]

Imagine a sand storm when the mirror is outside. I dont see any side-protection. Would be really bad.

[Evi1M4chine]

LOL, I heard With our host Dr. Dre.. That would have been awesome! ;)

[jamieball]

That is amazing

[iviewthetube]

So how many years of bad luck comes with breaking one of those mirrors?

[iviewthetube]

Lol. Don't stand in front of the mirror on a hot sunny day!

[kurtilein3]

some of these people really have awesome jobs.

thinking about specially designing such a piece of equipment for one special purpose and then building it and using it within a quite short amount of time must really be fulfilling work. and there are many pieces of technology here where this might apply.

[grofuss]

Awesome video, just incredible to see what it takes to maintain precision optics!

[HiAdrian]

Wow that's impressive. I'll think of that the next time i have to clean my DSLR lenses.

[teemuruskeepaa]

I wonder if my 11 cm Tal-1 mirror needs the same process

[teemuruskeepaa]

I like Giant VLT Mirror!! ;)