ESO engineer at the ELT M1 Test Facility at ESO Headquarters

This photo shows ESO engineer Philippe Gitton working on a test model of the main mirror of ESO's Extremely Large Telescope (ELT) in January 2021. The "M1 Test Facility" was erected at ESO's Headquarters in Garching to develop and test this mirror, known as M1. As a physical model replicating in a 1:1 scale a portion of the telescope's main structure and of the M1 system, this facility is allowing engineers to extensively test the system and all its components long before the real mirror becomes operational. ESO's ELT will be located in Cerro Armazones in Chile and is expected to start operating later this decade.