Keck telescope: 10 m segmented mirror
Telescopio Keck: espejo segmentado de 10 m
- Date
- 1993 · confidence high
- Place
- Mauna Kea Observatory, Hawaii, United States
- Credited to
- Jerry Nelson, University of California and Caltech
- Field
- Cosmos & Earth
What it is
A telescope with a 10 m primary mirror made of 36 actively controlled hexagonal segments that work as a single mirror. It was the world's largest optical telescope when it opened and proved the feasibility of segmented mirrors.
Keck I saw first light in 1993; Keck II was completed in 1996. Segmented mirrors had been proposed earlier, but Keck made them practical with active optics.
What it led to
- segmented-mirror telescopes such as the GTC, TMT and ELT
- detections of exoplanets and of the galactic-centre black hole
- adaptive optics at large observatories