Abstract Several large groundbased optical/infrared telescopes with diameters of 7.5m or larger will come into operation before the end of this century. In addition to their increased photon collecting power these new facilities are expected to also yield improved imaging capabilities through a combination of careful thermal and ventilation control to eliminate locally induced seeing effects and the application of active and adaptive optics techniques. The latter is capable of providing diffraction limited imaging at single telescopes throughout the infrared spectral region and even higher angular resolution will be possible in some cases by means of multi-telescope interferometry with baselines of up to 100m. Equipped with a variety of imaging and spectroscopic instruments which fully exploit the capabilities of the high performance 2D array detectors which have only recently become available in the infrared, this new generation of telescopes will clearly open up unprecedented observational opportunities. Estimates of the achievable sensitivity suggests that, in particular, they should be an enormously powerful tool for the study of high redshift objects and hence could make a major contribution to our knowledge of the distant universe.
Infrared capabilities of very large groundbased telescopes
Advances in Space Research ; 11 , 2 ; 307-316
1991-01-01
10 pages
Article (Journal)
Electronic Resource
English
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