GTCdigital

In July the Gran Telescopio CANARIAS saw its first light, which means that it turned its eyes on the sky for the first time and captured its first images. It did this using just twelve of the 36 segments that will make up its primary mirror. Read this article

In recent months, the AIV (Assembly, Incorporation and Verification) Room at the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC) has been turned upside down. Lorries have been arriving laden with instrument parts that have been unloaded, unpacked, tested, assembled and adjusted. The OSIRIS instrument is growing. One of its components is the filter wheel, which plays an important part in this symphony in O major: the OSIRIS symphony. Read this article

The secondary mirror's time has come. It too is entitled to an aluminium shower which will allow it, like a spy, to feed back what the primary mirror reflects to it. In this edition, however, we focus on movement: it's a frenzy of movement for the telescope's optical system, whether visible to the human eye or not. Movements like the active optics system adjusting each primary mirror segment, the tertiary mirror working to redirect light and, of course, the movements of the secondary mirror. Read this article

Despite appearances, and although the differences between them are virtually imperceptible, the mirrors of the Gran Telescopio CANARIAS are not identical. Each segment has been engineered to within a millimeter to fit perfectly into the primary mirror, so a way to tell them apart has had to be devised. Read this article

To locate an object in the sky, the Gran Telescopio CANARIAS (GTC) moves on two axes: the azimuth (which is parallel to the horizon) and the elevation (altitude). In addition, the telescope has to move in a third direction to compensate for the earth's rotation. Read this article