ESO Records Sharpest Ever Telescope Images/ESA TV Exchanges/07-12-2001

The next transmission of the ESA TV Service will be:

07-Dec-01 08:00 – 08:15 GMT

ESO Records Sharpest Ever Telescope Images

ESA TV Exchanges

Background information on the transmission:

This ESA TV Exchanges feed is transmitted by the European Commission’s “Europe by Satellite” (EbS) service. You can find the complete transmission schedule and download scripts and shot lists, also for ESA TV items, from the EbS Web site at http://europa..eu.int/comm/ebs/index.html

A team from French and German research institutes and ESO at the Paranal Observatory is celebrating f “First Light” for the NAOS-CONICA Adaptive Optics facility, another important milestone for the Very Large Telescope (VLT) project.

Normally, the achievable image sharpness of a ground-based telescope is limited by atmospheric turbulence. However, with Adaptive Optics, this drawback can be overcome and the telescope produces images that are as sharp as if it were in space.

Adaptive Optics works with a computer-controlled, flexible mirror that counteracts the image distortion by atmospheric turbulence.

During a four-week period of hard work, the team assembled and installed this instrument at one of the four 8.2-m VLT telescopes. On 25 November 2001, a steady stream of photons from a southern star produced the sharpest image recorded so far by one of the VLT telescopes.

With a core angular diameter of only 0.07 arcsec, this image is near the theoretical limit possible for a telescope of this size and at the infrared wavelength used for this demonstration (2.2 µm). Subsequent tests reached the spectacular performance of 0..04 arcsec at 1.2 µm.

Today’s transmission is an ESO-produced Video News Release on this achievement.

A Real Video Stream of part of the images is available from http://www.eso.org/outreach/epr/videos/newsreel.html

The script is on under http://television.esa.int/photos/EbS22831.pdf

There is a replay of this programme on EbS at 13:00-13:15 GMT

More background information can be found on http://www.eso.org/outreach/press-rel/pr-2001/pr-25-01.html.

Transmission details:

EUTELSAT HOT BIRD at 13* East (DVB/MPEG-2)

Horizontal (MCPC, Europe by Satellite)

F=12,476 MHz, SR=27,500 MS/sec, FEC=3/4

For further information, visit our website at http://television.esa.int. For other enquires, contact Claus Habfast, Tel +31 71 565 3838, Fax +31 71 565 6340, e-mail claus.habfast@esa.int.