Instrumentation at the ESO VLT

Alan Moorwood

doi:10.1117/12.670662

27 June 2006 Instrumentation at the ESO VLT

Alan Moorwood

Proceedings Volume 6269, Ground-based and Airborne Instrumentation for Astronomy; 626904 (2006) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.670662
Event: SPIE Astronomical Telescopes + Instrumentation, 2006, Orlando, Florida , United States

Abstract

The ESO Very Large Telescope (VLT) on Paranal mountain in northern Chile comprises four 8.2m diameter "Unit Telescopes"; three 1.8m movable outrigger telescopes (shortly to be 4) for interferometry and the enclosures for two survey telescopes - the 2.6m VST to be used in the visible and the 4m class, infrared VISTA telescope which will both start commissioning in 2006. Here I will give an overview of the accompanying large instrument development programme which has so far delivered 9 operational facility instruments for the UT's (plus a visitor focus) and 2 major instruments for the interferometric focus. In addition, the laser guide star facility to be used to generate artificial (sodium) stars for the adaptive optics assisted instruments NACO and SINFONI is being commissioned; the optical and infrared cameras for the survey telescopes are almost ready; the CRIRES high resolution infrared spectrograph is being commissioned on UT1; the infrared imager HAWK-I is being assembled at ESO Garching; four major second generation instruments for the UTs (X-Shooter, KMOS, MUSE and SPHERE) are at various stages of development throughout Europe and Phase A studies of three second generation interferometric instruments (MATISSE, VSI and GRAVITY) have just been launched.

Citation Download Citation

Alan Moorwood "Instrumentation at the ESO VLT", Proc. SPIE 6269, Ground-based and Airborne Instrumentation for Astronomy, 626904 (27 June 2006); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.670662

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