Talk:Very Large Telescope

Surely you're joking
Can somebody please make a joke about the name? Or at least the desire to use the acronym VLT? Yes, I'm sure these jokes aren't very funny in conversation, but on the web, and to laymen .... Well, I'm going to go and have a lie-down.


 * A much better name would be the Adrian Pingstone Telescope seeing that I've done the two illustrations for the article.
 * Now that the name VLT has been used up, their next project is called OWL (Overwhelmingly Large Telescope). Just the rotating part of OWL will weigh 12000 tons!!
 * By the way, you can sign your Username and Date with four tildes (the wavy thingy above the hash sign).
 * Adrian Pingstone 18:37, 21 Dec 2003 (UTC)


 * Schlock Mercenary actually made a joke that referred to the VLT. At one point, the characters used a "Very Large Array" that essentially worked as a VLT.
 * Their array, however, was made out of a missile arsenal, so they subsequently dubbed it the "Very Dangerous Array" or VDA.

Images
As the two pics are non-commercial ESO PR-stuff, you may want to have a look at the commons, fresh and steaming.

First sentence
Can someone knowledgable about the subject write a good introductory sentence? Usually people want to know WHAT Very Large Telescope is (apart from the obvious), not what it conisists of.

History
If anyone has any information on when it was built that would be useful to put in the article. Oh, and information on who the heck named the thing, too. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mbarbier (talk • contribs) 15:30, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

Resolving power
What is the resolving power of the VLT at the distance of the Moon, in the visual spectrum? The article Apollo Moon Landing hoax conspiracy theories used to say that it would be 130 meters but someone just changed it (with a reference) saying it would be 2 meters (0.001 arcsecond). Bubba73 (talk), 18:12, 6 April 2009 (UTC) 380 thousand kilometers away. 0.625e-7 times 380e+6 is 23 m with the standard definition. 132.229.222.14 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 22:59, 20 March 2011 (UTC).
 * lambda/D at lambda=500 nm and D=8 m is 0.625e-7 rad. The moon is on the average

arc-minute
I think there is an error because if one takes 0.001 arc-minute=0.001' as resolution one gets about 112 meters because the observable length on the moon is r*tan(0.001')≈r*0.001:60*pi:180=112m with r=3.844*10^8 m the distance to the moon (tan(a)≈a for little angels). With a 0.001 arc-second resolution one would be able to see objects with diameters of 1.86 m, which apparently is not the case. Do you agree? — comment added by Huldreich (talk • contribs) 18:38, 1 November 2014 (UTC)

Importance Rating
Just glancing at this article I am struck by how uniquely important ESO's 'Very Large Telescope' will be to astronomy, more so than even the Kepler telescope. Surely this article should be rated at 'Top' importance and not 'Mid'? Again, I just have to glance at the WikiProject Astronomy/Importance ratings article and it is obvious to see that the Very Large Telescope article ticks all the boxes for being a Top importance rated article.


 * For example. Top: Fundamental and famous astronomy.

Well it fits that criteria easily as it is going to be the world's most advanced visible-light astronomical observatory. It is easily going to be the most famous telescope in history!


 * Top: Very important, fundamental and pioneering instrument types.

Well d'oh, obviously.

However you want to rate the quality of this article the subject matter is of the highest importance to astronomy. This magnificent, ground breaking and uniquely advanced telescope will discover nearly all the Earth like exo-planets, out to about 50 light years. There is never going to be a more important piece of equipment, in the field of astronomy! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.181.99.79 (talk) 23:34, 7 January 2012 (UTC)


 * I'm not sure why you rate Kepler so highly and not for example Hubble which has done orders of magnitudes more to further astronomy in many disparate areas of research...even the Hubble article is only rated "High".


 * "Well it fits that criteria easily as it is going to be the world's most advanced visible-light astronomical observatory. It is easily going to be the most famous telescope in history!"..."This magnificent, ground breaking and uniquely advanced telescope will discover nearly all the Earth like exo-planets, out to about 50 light years."


 * Eh? Are you confusing the Very Large Telescope with the Extremely Large Telescope? ChiZeroOne (talk) 03:31, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

Instruments section
This is somewhat out of date and does not include the locations of the second generation instruments (e.g. SPHERE at UT3 Naysmith A, MUSE at UT4 Naysmith B). It also doesn't include the coherent combined focus, the incoherent combined focus. See http://www.eso.org/sci/facilities/paranal/instruments/overview.html.

I would update myself it but my wiki-foo is inadequate. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ajebson (talk • contribs) 10:07, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

I changed 2 of them to KMOS and MUSE to reflect the current instruments. Sphere is in transit to Chile, it has not been mounted at Paranal yet. The interferometic or combined light instruments aren't applicable to the table, but they have descriptions below. Martin Cash (talk) 20:19, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

VLTI discovers the largest yellow star, so far
Headine-1: ESO’s Very Large Telescope spots largest yellow hypergiant star QUOTE: “The European Southern Observatory’s (ESO) Very Large Telescope Interferometer (VLTI) has revealed the largest yellow star — and one of the 10 largest stars found so far. This hypergiant measures more than 1,300 times the diameter of the Sun and is part of a double star system, ...” [There is a lot of current interest in astronomy!] — Charles Edwin Shipp (talk) 00:03, 13 March 2014 (UTC)
 * http://www.astronomy.com/news/videos/2014/03/esos-very-large-telescope-spots-largest-yellow-hypergiant-star

Headine-2: ESO Very Large Telescope Captures Largest Yellow Star Ever Spotted QUOTE: “Scientists in Chile operating the ESO's Very Large Telescope Interferometer spotted the yellow star, HR5171 A, which is one of the top ten largest stars ever discovered. The star is 1,300 times the diameter of the sun, shining 12,000 light-years away. ... European Southern Observatory officials reported that it is possible to see the star with the naked eye because of its intense glow that's one million times brighter than the sun. ” [Wow! Can an Earthlings even appreciate vastness/brilliance?] — Charles Edwin Shipp (talk) 00:09, 13 March 2014 (UTC)
 * http://www.scienceworldreport.com/articles/13429/20140312/eso-very-large-telescope-captures-largest-yellow-star-spotted.htm

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External links modified (January 2018)
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Angular resolution on Wikidata
Seems like no one wanted to tackle the issue, so I want to try. What should Wikidata record state on the angular resolution telescope? For example, Extremely Large Telescope states 0.005 arcsecond. Simple. But the VLT here can be used in a couple of modes. The article states that the resolution of a single mirror mode (in which mode it's mostly used) is 0.05 arcsecond, just like FAQ. With all the telescopes combined, it used to state that we can reach 0.001 arcsecond. The FAQ that the section references, however, seems to only list 2 miliarcseconds (0.002 arcsecond), so for now I changed both the article and Wikidata value to 0.002 arcsecond.

My main question is, what value should be stated on Wikidata? 0.002 arcsecond, 0.05 arcsecond, or maybe something more elaborate? Piotrek54321 (talk) 14:38, 15 January 2019 (UTC)

Limiting Magnitude of 31.5 - 32?
It says that the telescope can see objects 4 billion times fainter than the human eye. Because of its isolation and high altitude, it would rank 1 in the Bortle Scale. This corresponds to a limiting magnitude of 7.6 - 8.0 (31.5 used 7.5 for calculations). 4 billion times fainter than 7.5 is a magnitude of 31.5 (using the formula 10-0.4$m$ = brightness) and 4 billion times fainter than 8.0 is 32. I notice that the first value is the same as Hubble while the second is even more than Hubble. Does this mean that it had a limiting magnitude of ~31.75? PlanetsForLife 23:21, 17 June 2021 (UTC)

Original cost and annual operating expenses, and number of personnel at site
Does anybody know the original cost of the VLT?, and the annual operating expenses, and number of personnel on site? Thanks in advance to anybody who knows, and even better if you have a link.

hubble
The VLT is one of the most productive ground-based facilities for astronomy, second only to the Hubble Space Telescope

ah yes that good ol' ground-based hubble. very productive one! 2600:1700:5660:1900:B03F:3D92:1137:EF24 (talk) 21:54, 20 February 2023 (UTC)