Hawaii Approves Plan for Giant Telescope

[n2doc]

An artist's illustration of the Thirty-Meter Telescope atop the volcanic peak of Mauna Kea in Hawaii.
CREDIT: Thirty Meter Telescope


A telescope that will be one of the largest in the world has been given the green light to be built atop a dormant Hawaiian volcano.

The Hawaiian government's Department of Land and Natural Resources has granted a permit to the University of Hawaii to build and operate the $1.3 billion Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT) on Mauna Kea, a 13,803-foot (4,207-meter) volcanic peak on Hawaii's Big Island.

The permit, which was approved Friday (Feb. 25), is the final step in a multi-year vetting process that took the project's cultural and environmental impacts into account, TMT officials said.

"The Thirty Meter Telescope has worked diligently during the past three years to design an observatory that would minimize its environmental and cultural impact," Sandra Dawson, TMT’s Manager of Hawaii Community Affairs, said in a statement. "The TMT project also fulfills the requirements outlined in the recently approved Comprehensive Management Plan for Mauna Kea."

more
http://www.space.com/10998-hawaii-approves-giant-telescope.html

[Newest Reality]

1. That's 1,300,000,000!

I love science and have always recognized its value to us. That looks like a spiffy telescope, I must say.

I can't seem to shake the idea that there are so many other important things, scientifically and economically, that need to be addressed. I mean looming crises and perfects storms brewing.

Can't we put amounts like that into helping all of us so we can live to enjoy the awesome pictures that the telescope would provide?

Sorry, that was a spoil the techno-fun rant. (slithers away)

[Posteritatis]

5. How little would you prefer be spent?

Posts such as that, I've noticed, are usually euphemisms for "funding needs to be zero dollars and zero cents until everything else is fixed," which is itself just another way of saying "no funding ever period."

(Also, if you think telescopes are just about pretty pictures - or have been anytime in the last few decades - you're wrong.)

[Bill McBlueState]

8. Astronomy is a major economic force on Hawaii's Big Island

I don't have any numbers handy, but it takes a lot of staff to operate the telescopes, keep them in good repair, and lodge and feed the astronomers who come from all over the world to observe on Mauna Kea. It's not as though that money just disappears into the void.

[laconicsax]

2. Link to the project website:

http://www.tmt.org/

It's planned as a Ritchey-Chrétien with 492 segments making up the primary mirror, a 10 ft secondary mirror, a tertiary mirror (!) to switch between instruments, and have an integrated adaptive optics system! :wow:

[AlecBGreen]

3. I cant wait to see what it brings back

the huge mirrors are great but those adaptive optics have revolutionized ground-based telescopes. I bet the images that come back will rival those of the Hubble.

[laconicsax]

4. They'll make Hubble look like a cheap toy.

The TMT primary will have 156x the light-gathering ability of the Hubble and state-of-the-art instruments. That's like the difference between a 3-inch refractor with a nice webcam and the James Gregory telescope (37" schmidt-cassegrain with research-quality CCD).

[eppur_se_muova]

6. But Hubble has no atmospheric distortion --

That was the whole motivation for creating Hubble and other space-based telescopes. Motion of the atmosphere is a big limiting factor for resolution in ground-based telescopes. The Big Eye will certainly have much greater sensitivity, but Hubble will still be able to see finer details than any ground-based telescope.

[laconicsax]

7. Atmospheric distortion won't be an issue.

Adaptive optics will undoubtedly improve significantly in the time between now (they're already pretty good), and 2018 when the TMT is supposed to be completed. Also, the 30m diameter was selected partially because the effects of atmospheric distortion decrease as the instrument size increases.

The Hubble is a fantastic platform, but when the TMT starts running, it shouldn't take long before it clearly surpasses what Hubble can do. The resolving power of a 30m telescope is significantly better than a 2.4m one, the light gathering power is significantly higher, adaptive optics will certainly be phenomenal in 7-8 years, and since the sensitivity of a telescope increases with size, the limits of atmospheric seeing are partially negated by the sensitivity of a 30m telescope.