Science of Astronomy

From its launch in 1948 until 1975, the largest telescope in the world was the Hale Telescope on Palomar Mountain in southern California, a giant Newtonian reflector with a mirror 200 inches (5 meters across). Even when Hale was displaced by the 6-meter Russian BTA-6 telescope, it remained the most effective large-aperture telescope in the world because the Russian behemoth suffered from many design flaws and operational problems.

But in the early 1990’s, Hale was bumped once and for all from the top of the telescope world. That’s when the first of the two Keck telescopes, each with 10-meter mirrors, became operational at an observatory on Mauna Kea. Since then, ground based astronomy has entered a new period of rapid innovation and growth as larger and more sophisticated instruments come online, most with adaptive optics and systems to combine the light from more than one mirror. The Keck scopes are still #2 on the list, and were only recently bumped by a slightly larger scope called the Gran Telescopio Canarias. If you are having trouble keeping track of the world’s largest telescopes, the infographic above will help you sort out which is which [Read more…] about World’s Biggest Telescopes