World's Largest Virtual Optical Telescope Created

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World's Largest Virtual Optical Telescope Created 57

Posted by Soulskill on Saturday February 04, 2012 @04:26AM from the very-very-large-telescope dept.

erice writes "Astronomers in Chile linked four telescopes together to form a single virtual mirror 130 meters in diameter. Previous efforts had linked two telescopes but this is the first time that all four had been linked. 'The process that links separate telescopes together is known as interferometry. In this mode, the VLT becomes the biggest ground-based optical telescope on earth. Besides creating a gigantic virtual mirror, interferometry also greatly improves the telescope's spatial resolution and zooming capabilities.'"

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