As far telescope size goes, the DDO, at 1.88 metres, is a wimp: Keck and Keck II, the largest telescopes in the world, atop Hawaii’s Mauna Kea, have apertures 10 metres in size. But even those two will be dwarfed by the so-called “30-metre telescope” (TMT) when it is completed in 2015, a massive international collaboration comprising hundreds of scientists, including several U of T stargazers.
Still to be decided, though, is a location for the TMT: candidate sites in Chile, Mexico, and Hawaii’s already-crowded Mauna Kea are in the running. The design, which is still sketchy, should be done by next year: it involves several individually-controlled hexagonal mirrors that are equivalent to a single mirror 30 metres across (see photo).
The TMT will be run as private-public partnership, with research institutions buying up time-shares to use it-much like with a cottage somewhere in the mountains. Aloha!
-Mike Ghenu
