ESO's VLT

(The center of a galaxy as seen by the VLT.)

Spend just a little time wandering around in the world of science and you'll run into a lot of esoteric acronyms that stand for very long and incomprehensible words. That's one reason I was intrigued by the VLT.

ESO is the European Southern Observatory, and VLT stands for Very Large telescope. There's an acronym I can live with.

The VLT is really four separate telescopes with mirrors 8.2 meters (26 feet and almost 11 inches) across. Each of these can be used alone, and generally they are used that way a lot, but when used together in groups (along with four smaller, movable Auxiliary Telescopes) they can greatly increase the resolution of an image. When they are used this way they are called an Interferometer.

Links:

A Really Excellent You Tube Video

An Explanation of Interferometry

Word of The Day

Resolution: The ability to distinguish two separate points as to distinct points rather than one big blur. The ESO website says that the VLT could see a car's headlights as two points if the car were on the moon.