Two ways of spreading light

The bright sun shines onto the telescopes of the VLT, ESO's flagship facility. Visible in the centre is one of the Unit Telescopes and one of the smaller Auxilary telescopes, with 8.2m and 1.8m primary mirrors at their hearts, respectively. These mirrors collect light from the sky and pass it onto instruments, which use it for a variety of purposes before spreading the information out to astronomers around the world.