Intel Founder Funds Thirty-Meter Telescope Project

Gordon Moore of Intel recently announced a donation to CalTech to fund the world’s largest telescope. At 30 meters across it will be larger than the world’s current record holder although other, larger telescopes are in the works. Gordon Moore’s foundation donated $200M for the design. It’ll be an optical telescope with a central mirror consisting of 492-hexagon shaped mirrors – each just under 5 feet across.

You can view an animation of the telescope. It was formerly called the California Extremely Large Telescope but changed its name when institutions outside California joined the effort. The primary control system corrects the optics for temperature, gravity, and wind disturbances. The primary mirror control system uses 1476 actuators and 2772 sensors. The Mount control system controls the elevation and azimuth axes.

The GSMT—Giant Segmented Mirror Telescope project seeks to support extremely large telescope operations by sharing information and researching various ELT concepts. Here’s a list of unique approaches to the large telescope application including the Thirty Meter Telescope.

Best regards,
Hall T.