VLT Auxiliary Telescopes

The four Auxiliary Telescopes (ATs) are 1.8m diameter telescopes that feed light to the Very Large Telescope Interferometer at ESO's Paranal Observatory. Uniquely for telescopes of this size they can be moved from place to place around the VLT platform and are self-contained.

The top part of each AT is a round enclosure, made from two sets of three segments, which open and close. Its job is to protect the delicate 1.8-metre telescope from the desert conditions. The enclosure is supported by the boxy transporter section, which also contains electronics cabinets, liquid cooling systems, air-conditioning units, power supplies, and more. During astronomical observations the enclosure and transporter are mechanically isolated from the telescope, to ensure that no vibrations compromise the data collected.

The transporter section runs on tracks, so the ATs can be moved to 30 different observing locations. As the VLT Interferometer (VLTI) acts rather like a single telescope as large as the group of telescopes combined, changing the positions of the ATs means that the VLTI can be adjusted according to the needs of the observing project.