A day in the life of the ELT

This artist’s animation shows what ESO’s Extremely Large Telescope (ELT) will look like once it starts operation. The telescope's main structure will hold its five mirrors and optics, including the enormous 39-metre primary mirror. To protect the delicate technology from the extreme environment of Chile’s Atacama Desert, the structure will be housed inside of a giant dome. About 80 metres high and 93 metres wide, the dome will have a footprint roughly equivalent to that of a football pitch. The upper part of the dome will rotate to allow the telescope to point in any direction through its large observing slit.