Laser star

Unit Telescope (UT) 4 (Yepun) of ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) is pictured on the left sending four laser beams up to the sky above the Paranal observatory. The lasers create an artificial guide star as part of the VLT’s Adaptive Optics system, state-of-the-art technology that corrects the blurring effects of the Earth’s atmosphere to create sharper images of astronomical objects. The other three unit telescopes are also pictured, from left to right: Antu, Keuyen and Melipal. When used in combination the UTs can observe details up to 16 times finer than any individual one can see alone.