Question

1. Why were the two Keck 400” telescopes placed atop Mauna Kea?

2. What are adaptive optics designed to overcome? How is this done?

3. Explain the basic principle and goals behind the Very Large Array in Socorro, New Mexico.

4. What are some advantages of radio telescopes over optical telescopes?

Answer 1

1. the locatino of mauna kea is ideal for telescope locaiton because

a. dark skies, lack of pollution

b. low humidity

c. high altitude

d. almost equitorial location

2. Adaptive optics (AO) is a technology used to improve the performance of optical systems by reducing the effect of wavefront distortions: it aims at correcting the deformations of an incoming wavefront by deforming a mirror in order to compensate for the distortion.

one example of adaptice optics : The simplest form of adaptive optics is tip-tilt correction, which corresponds to correction of the tilts of the wavefront in two dimensions (equivalent to correction of the position offsets for the image). This is performed using a rapidly moving tip–tilt mirror that makes small rotations around two of its axes. A significant fraction of the aberration introduced by the atmosphere can be removed in this way.

3. The Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (VLA) is a centimeter-wavelength radio astronomy observatory located in central New Mexico on the Plains of San Agustin, between the towns of Magdalena and Datil, ~50 miles (80 km) west of Socorro.The VLA comprises twenty-seven 25-meter radio telescopes deployed in a Y-shaped array and all the equipment, instrumentation, and computing power to function as an interferometer.

hence this VLA is used for astronomical observations in radio wave region of spectrum

4. radio telescopes are used to detect radio waves. Now radiowaves are transmitted by most materials opaque to visible light, which is advantage of radio telescopes over traditional telescopes which cannot see beyond the unobstructed line of sight