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#Introduction Hi #fediverse ! We’re the European Southern Observatory, and we design, build and operate ground-based telescopes.

One of them is our Extremely Large Telescope, currently under construction in #Chile. It will have a 39 m mirror, and its rotating enclosure will weigh 6100 tonnes, or about 700 mastodons!

We’re looking forward to chatting with all of you about #astronomy

📷 ESO/G. Vecchia

#astrodon #astrophysics #space #science

The giant metal frame of a dome takes up most of the picture frame, contrasting with the brown hills and a thin horizontal line of blue sky in the background. The dome's frame is not yet fully covered in the middle, so the dark brown landscape behind it shows. The big opening in the dome's roof shows the interior, still a construction site with a structure of white beams. In front of the big building is one red crane, taller than the dome.
#Space #fediverse #science #astronomy #astrophysics #introduction #Astrodon #Chile

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Paolo Amoroso
Paolo Amoroso
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👆 Please welcome to the fediverse the official Mastodon account of the @esoastronomy European Southern Observatory (ESO).

#astronomy #mastodon #space

#Space #mastodon #astronomy @ESO
This entry was edited (3 weeks ago)
in reply to ESO

Janne Moren
Janne Moren
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"Extremely Large Telescope" - full points for a descriptive name!
in reply to Janne Moren

⊥ᵒᵚ Cᵸᵎᶺᵋᶫ∸ᵒᵘ ☑️
⊥ᵒᵚ Cᵸᵎᶺᵋᶫ∸ᵒᵘ ☑️
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you should read about the follow up, the Over Whelmingly Large telescope. OWL for short lol

I think it got canceled.

This entry was edited (3 weeks ago)
in reply to ⊥ᵒᵚ Cᵸᵎᶺᵋᶫ∸ᵒᵘ ☑️

ESO
ESO
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@falken @jannem OWL actually came first, but after several studies we deemed it was too complex and risky, and we opted instead for the ELT, which is still quite a challenge! So OWL now means Originally Was Larger 😄 But yes, we fully embrace these extremely (pun intended) descriptive names, as xkcd brilliantly showed: xkcd.com/1294/

Telescope Names

xkcd
@⊥ᵒᵚ Cᵸᵎᶺᵋᶫ∸ᵒᵘ ☑️ @Janne Moren
This entry was edited (3 weeks ago)
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