After battling against a number of odds, the world’s largest telescope has finally been mounted on top of Mount Graham in southern Arizona. The $120 million dollar worth Large Binocular Telescope Observatory has already started catching images of the distant heavenly objects; the latest being that of a spiral galaxy 102 million light-years away. The key feature of the telescope is its two mirrors nearly 28 feet in diameter and weighing 35,000 pounds. The primary mirror of the telescope went online in October 2005 and its second mirror went online last Thursday completing the entire installation process of the Large Binocular Telescope. The telescope takes advantage of active and adaptive optics provides by Arcetri Observatory. Astronomers had of late been largely dependent on the Hubble Space Telescope for monitoring the cosmos. The new Large Binocular Telescope will produce more powerful images than Hubble with its large mirrors providing a larger area to gather light and produce sharper images. More equipment will be added to the Large Binocular Telescope over the next few years further increasing the strength of the telescope. The Large Binocular telescope will create images in the near-infrared with 10 times the resolution of the Hubble Space Telescope.
However, some time back in the mid nineties with lawsuits coming in the way of its installation on Mount Graham it seemed unlikely that the telescope would ultimately come to the aid of cosmic research. Environmentalists had obstructed construction of the telescope that they feared would endanger squirrels and Mexican spotted owls. A group of San Carlo Apaches had objected to the choice of the site that they considered sacred. The courts allowed construction of the observatory but forest fires in 1996 and 2004 further delayed the construction of the Large Binocular Telescope.
Source: USA Today
