GTCdigital

We are on the brink of an era in which technology is the undisputed ruler of all of our destinies. Everything depends on it, from the strings of a guitar (as the singer Jorge Drexler has said) to the placement of a tile that will prevent the space shuttle Discovery burning up on its re-entry into the earth's atmosphere. Our mobile telephones, the exploration of space, the identification of organisms that exist in extreme conditions, and the development of the human race, including the possibility of adapting the temperature to suit us, are all dependent on the progress of technology. Read this article

These are terms that could be used to describe the "hard man" in an action movie, but they appear here as some of the properties of the material most commonly used in building the structure of the Gran Telescopio CANARIAS: steel. Read this article

What is like a 'lift' with a single occupant, reflects when it goes up, parks when it goes down and turns from side to side? Our bulletins are getting more technical, but only because we want to make things clear. How else can we explain how a tower, a lift and a mirror all work together? Read this article

We have already mentioned the Gran Telescopio Canarias’ (GTC) tertiary mirror, especially its capability to level the weight automatically, allowing for the movement of the mirror. Its function is to "invade" the path of the light, in order to redirect it to the different foci, in our case the 4 folded Cassegrains and the 2 Nasmyths. Read this article

Lots of things can be used to reflect light - like glass, metal...or a mirror. The GTC’s tertiary mirror is an efficient ‘relay’ that can deflect light received from the secondary mirror to six different foci and therefore six different instruments. Read this article