| ESO 3.6 meter Telescope[1] | |
| Organization | European Southern Observatory |
|---|---|
| Location | La Silla Observatory, Chile |
| Coordinates | 70° 43' 54.1" W -29° 15' 39.5" S (WGS84) |
| Altitude | 2400 m (7874 ft) |
| Weather | Good |
| Wavelength | Visible/Near IR |
| Built | 1977 |
| Diameter | 3.566 m (140″) |
| Angular resolution | 0.2 arcsec at Zenith |
| Collecting area | 8.8564 m2 |
| Focal length | f/8 (HARPS) |
| Mounting | Equatorial/Horseshoe |
| Website | ESO 3.6m |
The ESO 3.6 m Telescope is an optical reflecting telescope run by the European Southern Observatory at La Silla Observatory, Chile since 1977, with a clear aperture of about 3.6 meters (140 in.) and 8.6 m2 area. It received an overhaul in 1999 and a new secondary in 2004. It was one of the largest optical telescopes in the world when it was completed in the late 1970s, and has supported many advanced optical and scientific achievements. It presented one of the first Adaptive Optics system available to the astronomical community, ADONIS: ADaptive Optics Near Infrared System in the 1980s. By 2009, the telescope was used to discover 75 possible exoplanets.[2]
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Since April 2008, the only instrument on the ESO 3.6m telescope is HARPS, the High Accuracy Radial Velocity Planet Searcher. HARPS is a fibre-fed high resolution echelle spectrograph dedicated to the discovery of extrasolar planets. Other instruments on the telescope, now decommissioned, include:[3]
The ESO 3.6m telescope has made several scientific discoveries since it saw first light. Recent astronomical achievements were made possible by HARPS, a "top-class" instrument. This include finding the lightest exoplanet known at the time of discovery in, Gliese 581e, with only twice the mass of the Earth,[4] and the richest planetary system known at the time, with up to seven planets orbiting a Sun-like star.[5]
The telescope was also involved in solving a decades-old mystery regarding the mass of Cepheid variable stars. By using the HARPS instrument, astronomers detected for the first time a double star where a pulsating Cepheid variable and another star pass in front of one another, which allows to measure the mass of the Cepheid. The study concluded that the mass prediction coming from the theory of stellar pulsation was correct while the value calculated was at odds with the theory of stellar evolution.[6]
The discovery of the extrasolar planet Gliese 581 c by the team of Stéphane Udry at University of Geneva's Observatory in Switzerland was announced on April 24, 2007.[7] The team used the HARPS instrument (an echelle spectrograph) on the European Southern Observatory ESO 3.6 m Telescope in La Silla, Chile, and employed the radial velocity technique to identify the planet's influence on the star.[7][8]
In the heat of a Cold War, the ESO 3.6 m took its place among giant eyes old and new.
Largest telescopes in 1977:
| # | Name / Observatory |
Image | Aperture | M1 Area |
Altitude | First Light |
Special advocate |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | BTA-6 Special Astrophysical Obs |
238 inch 605 cm |
26 m2 | 2070 m (6791 ft) |
1975 | Mstislav Keldysh | |
| 2 | Hale Telescope Palomar Obs. |
200 inch 508 cm |
20 m2 | 1713 m (5620 ft) |
1949 | George Ellery Hale | |
| 3 | Mayall Telescope Kitt Peak National Obs. |
158 inch 401 cm |
10 m2 | 2120 m (6955 ft) |
1973 | Nicholas Mayall | |
| 4 | CTIO 4m/Blanco Telescope CTIO Obs. |
158 inch 401 cm |
10 m2 | 2200 m 7217 feet |
1976 | Nicholas Mayall | |
| 5 | Anglo-Australian Telescope Siding Spring Obs. |
153 inch 389 cm |
m2 | 1742 m (5715 ft) |
1974 | Prince Charles | |
| 6 | ESO 3.6 Telescope ESO La Silla Obs. |
140 inch 357 cm |
8.8 m2 | 2400 m (7874 ft) |
1977 | Adriaan Blaauw | |
| 7 | Shane Telescope Lick Observatory |
120 inch 305 cm |
m2 | 1283 m (4209 ft) |
1959 | Nicholas Mayall |
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