This Echo is READ ONLY !   NO Un-Authorized Messages Please!
 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~   ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
12\05 UK - Extremely Large Telescopes - a step closer
Part 2 of 2

NOTES 

1. The Royal Astronomical Society Discussion Meeting on Friday 13th 
   December 2002 takes place at the Scientific Societies Lecture 
   Theatre, 23 Savile Row, London W1, between 10.30 and 15.30. It is 
   open to guests and the media. Full details are available at:
        www.roe.ac.uk/atc/ras2002/ 

2. The newly announced European project for an ELT now incorporates 
   the 100-metre OverWhelmingly Large (OWL) Telescope concept led by 
   the European Southern Observatory (www.eso.org/projects/owl/) and 
   the Euro50 50-metre telescope concept led by the Lund Observatory, 
   Sweden (www.astro.lu.se/~torben/euro50/).

   The two principal ELT projects in the USA are the Giant Segmented 
   Mirror Telescope (GSMT) (in the range 30-50 metres) at the National 
   Optical Astronomy Observatory, Tucson, USA 
   (http://www.noao.edu/future/gsmt.html) and the California Extremely 
   Large Telescope (CELT), a 30-metre at the California Institute of 
   Technology (http://celt.ucolick.org/).

3. The UK expects to play a major role in the development of a 
   European ELT and will be providing scientific and engineering 
   support in the specification and design of the telescope and its 
   instruments. There will also be an opportunity for the UK to be 
   involved in the manufacture of the mirrors.

   The manufacture of mirror segments will be a very different 
   undertaking from the specialised production of single large 
   mirrors, which is expensive and risky.  Although designing and 
   polishing the first mirror segment may be difficult, once all the 
   problems are solved, another 1000 units could be turned out quickly 
   and cheaply (and profitably). Similarly, instruments for the 
   telescope may require numerous modular sub-systems which, once
   developed, could be manufactured on a commercial scale. 

4. The UK Astronomy Technology Centre is located at the Royal
   Observatory, Edinburgh (ROE). It is a scientific site belonging to 
   the Particle Physics and Astronomy Research Council (PPARC). The 
   mission of the UK ATC is to support the mission and strategic aims 
   of PPARC and to help keep the UK at the forefront of world 
   astronomy by providing a UK focus for the design, production and 
   promotion of state of the art astronomical technology.

   The Royal Observatory, Edinburgh comprises the UK Astronomy
   Technology Centre (UK ATC) of the Particle Physics and Astronomy 
   Research Council (PPARC), the Institute for Astronomy (IfA) of the 
   University of Edinburgh and the ROE Visitor Centre.

 - End of File -
================

---