Telescopes – Celestial Technology – Big Bigger Biggest

This film reveals the technological leaps forward that enabled the world’s largest optical telescope (by effective optical aperture) to be built. The Large Binocular Telescope sits on a mountain in Arizona over 3,000 metres above sea level. Equipped with two huge mirrors, this giant pair of eyes stares up into the night sky. Capable of producing images of heavenly bodies with startling clarity, the LBT focuses its mirrors on stars tens of millions of light years away from Earth. The documentary explores how this magnificent instrument was made possible through a series of six engineering breakthroughs. We analyse how landmark telescopes contributed innovations towards its development, allowing astronomers to see ever deeper into space. Using computer generated animation we reveal the incredible stories behind these structures, and the inventions that have allowed them to discover more about our universe. Six ingenious leaps forward that enabled telescopes to evolve from BIG, to BIGGER, into the world’s BIGGEST.

00:00 – Introduction
03:07 – Collecting Light – Newton’s Telescope
10:37 – Mirror – Parsons’s Telescope
20:45 – Tracking – Hooker Telescope
27:43 – Transporting the Mirror – Hale Telescope
37:02 – Temperature – Bolshoi Telescope
42:39 – Atmosphere – Large Binocular Telescope

Episode from the “Big Bigger Biggest” documentary series exploring the engineering breakthroughs that have enabled us to develop some of the largest structures in existence.

Subscribe to Element 18 – https://bit.ly/337R2uO