Proceedings of SPIE, the International Society for Optical Engineering/Proceedings of SPIE · 2003 · 39 citations · 0 references
Natural SciencesAstronomyPhysicsAstrophysicsObservational AstronomyStellar AstronomyAstronomical SurveyingInterferometryObservational TechniquesObservatory InstrumentationObservatory OperationsTelescope OpticsInterferometric InstrumentationInterferometric ObservingOptical InterferometersOptical Telescope SystemsOptical TelescopesStellar InterferometryTelescopesVery Long Baseline Interferometry (Vlbi)
The Very Large Telescope (VLT) Observatory on Cerro Paranal (2635 m) in Northern Chile is approaching completion. After the four 8-m Unit Telescopes (UT) individually saw first light in the last years, two of them were combined for the first time on October 30, 2001 to form a stellar interferometer, the VLT Interferometer. The remaining two UTs will be integrated into the interferometric array later this year. In this article, we will describe the subsystems of the VLTI and the planning for the following years.