POWERFUL
BY DESIGN
Optical Efficiency
The optical design of the Giant Magellan Telescope makes it extremely efficient in how it uses collected light. There are only two mirror surfaces in the optical path when used in its wide field of view modes, and only three mirror surfaces for the small field of view adaptive optics modes. This makes the Giant Magellan Telescope the most optically-efficient of all extremely large telescopes in the 30-meter class.
Image Clarity
The Giant Magellan Telescope is the only extremely large telescope in the 30-meter class with ground layer adaptive optics (GLAO) over the full field of view. This enables the telescope to see fainter objects with better resolution and sensitivity, which is extremely powerful for spectroscopy and the measurements of distances, dynamics, chemistry and masses of galaxies, planets, and stars.
Field of View
The Giant Magellan Telescope will have the widest field of view with the best image quality of any extremely large telescope in the 30-meter class. With a total light collecting area of 368 square meters, the telescope will deliver images sharp enough to resolve the torch engraved on a dime from nearly 160 kilometers away.
Cost Efficiency
The Giant Magellan Telescope’s optical design allows for the wide field of view, and magnification required to revolutionize astronomy, while keeping a compact total image size in the focal plane. In other words, the Giant Magellan Telescope has a smaller plate scale than the other 30-meter class extremely large telescopes, which allows for smaller, better, and cheaper instruments.
