RSAA Colloquia / Seminars / Feast-of-Facts: Thursday, 19 December 2024, 11:00-12:00; ZOOM or Duffield Lecture Theatre


Michele Cirasuolo

"From VLT to ELT"

I will provide an overview of the ESO instrumentation programme for VLT and ELT. I will first focus on the future instruments for the VLT and VLTI. Among all the planned instruments, I will describe MAVIS for the VLT (led by Australia) and then focus on the upcoming MOONS (for the VLT) and 4MOST (for VISTA) multi-objects spectrographs, discussing their status and the science goals of their large-scale spectroscopic surveys. I will then highlight the key science drivers of the new ESO’s flagship facility: the Extremely Large Telescope. The ELT is now under construction and with its 39-metre primary mirror it will be the largest optical/near-IR telescope in the world. I will present an overview of the ELT Programme, focusing on the latest status of the telescope, its instrumentation and science capabilities.