Mauna Kea gets the 30m Telescope.

[sheeny]

I found this on Nature this morning:


Al.

[coldspace]

Gee, 30 meters thats massive.
I read somewhere that it will have 10 times more power than Hubble.
Can't wait to see what it produces.

Regards Matt.

[renormalised]

Gotta have me one of those!!!!:P:D:D

Wonder if Planewave or RCOS have a model on the drawing boards:P:D:D

Seriously...that is great news. It'll be something to see what science they can get out of it.

[astroron]

Cheers Al, an awesome project to be sure:eyepop:

[renormalised]

My brother just remarked, after telling him about this, was the telescope a refractor or reflector.

Can you imagine trying to build a refractor with a 30m diameter triplet lens!!!!!!:eyepop::eyepop::eyepop:

I wouldn't like the job of figuring the lenses....grinding them to right shape, polishing then fitting them together with an oil layer between them!!!!. Then sticking the whole assembly into a carbon fibre OTA. What f ratio would you use....even f5 would make the scope 150m long!!!. Can you imagine f7 or f8, worse still f12 or larger!!!:eyepop::eyepop::eyepop:

You'd never use it visually. Can you imagine fitting a 3 or 4 inch focuser on the end of that thing!!!!.:eyepop::eyepop::eyepop:

Glad mirrors are the right stuff:D

[glenc]

S&T has an article about why they picked Mauna Kea and not Cerro Armazones in Chile. http://www.skyandtelescope.com/news/48184442.html
See also http://www.tmt.org/