7โ€“11 Jul 2025
Teaching and Learning Centre (TLC)
Europe/London timezone

Session

The Extremely Large Telescope: Science and Instrumentation

#67
9 Jul 2025, 09:00
TLC101

TLC101

Description

Organisers: Kathryn Hartley, Aurelie Magniez, Deborah Malone, Kieran O'Brien

The European Extremely Large Telescope (ELT) is currently under construction by a consortium of leading research institutes across Europe, including notable contributions from institutions in the UK. This groundbreaking telescope is poised to usher in a new era of high-resolution imaging, facilitated by its advanced adaptive optics systems and highly sensitive instruments.

This session will offer a platform for project participants to showcase their contributions to the construction of the telescope and its scientific instruments. Additionally, it will provide an overview of the anticipated scientific missions and the transformative impact these missions are expected to have on our understanding of the universe. Attendees will gain insights into the innovative technologies employed, the collaborative efforts driving the project, and the future research opportunities enabled by the ELT.

Presentation materials

  1. Prof. James S. Dunlop (University of Edinburgh)
    09/07/2025, 09:05
    Invited talk

    HARMONI is the first-light near-infrared Integral Field Spectrograph (IFS) planned for the European Extremely Large Telescope (ELT).
    I will present the planned capabilities of this uniquely powerful instrument, which will offer a near ten-fold improvement in both the angular and spectral resolution currently provided by the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) at near-infrared wavelengths. I...

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  2. ALISTAIR GLASSE (UK Astronomy Technology Centre)
    09/07/2025, 09:20
    The Extremely Large Telescope: Science and Instrumentation
    Talk

    We will briefly describe the performance parameters of the METIS thermal infrared instrument and its current build status, concentrating on the L- and M-band integral field, coronagraphic high resolution spectrometer (the LMS), which comprises the UK's contribution to the METIS project.

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  3. Ric Davies (MPE)
    09/07/2025, 09:35
    The Extremely Large Telescope: Science and Instrumentation
    Invited talk

    MICADO will be the first instrument available at the ELT. Using adaptive optics (its own SCAO system as well as the MORFEO system being built by INAF), it will enable unprecedented resolution at near-infrared wavelengths, providing diffraction limited imaging, astrometry, high contrast imaging, and slit spectroscopy. I will describe the MICADO project, indicate a few science cases that exploit...

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  4. Aurora Sicilia-Aguilar (University of Dundee)
    09/07/2025, 09:50
    The Extremely Large Telescope: Science and Instrumentation
    Talk

    The field of star and planet formation has enormously profited from the availability of high spatial resolution and infrared capabilities, although those so far do not always come together. The METIS instrument will provide high sensitivity, high spatial resolution, and high spectral resolution, which all combined are key to unveil the inner regions of protoplanetary discs, including the...

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  5. Jay Stephan (UK Astronomy Technology Centre)
    09/07/2025, 10:05
    The Extremely Large Telescope: Science and Instrumentation
    Talk

    Light emission from the atmosphere, known as airglow, is imprinted on all ground-based observations. Airglow is particularly strong and dense in near-infrared spectra, forming a forest of emission lines with fluctuating intensities. To ensure observations taken with ELT instruments are used to their full potential, an ELT working-group on sky-subtraction has been established by ESO in...

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  6. Gavin Dalton (University of Oxford/RALSpace)
    10/07/2025, 16:20
    The Extremely Large Telescope: Science and Instrumentation
    Talk

    I will describe the process of evolution of the ELT MOSAIC instrument from its original Phase A concept to the final architecture now in detailed design. Substantial changes in the design arose from hard questioning of initial assumptions and have substantially improved the feasibility and performance of the instrument.

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  7. Vinooja Thurairethinam (UK Astronomy Technology Centre)
    10/07/2025, 16:35
    The Extremely Large Telescope: Science and Instrumentation
    Talk

    The ArmazoNes high Dispersion Echelle Spectrograph (ANDES) is a powerful high-resolution spectroscopy instrument for the ELT that will operate over a minimum simultaneous waveband of 0.4-1.8ยตm, with the goal of being extended to 0.35-2.4ยตm with a K-band spectrograph. Consisting of fibre-fed spectrographs โ€“ UBV, RIZ and YJH โ€“ and providing a spectral resolution of ~100,000, ANDES will offer...

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  8. Ben Buky (STFC - UK Astronomy Technology Centre)
    10/07/2025, 16:50
    The Extremely Large Telescope: Science and Instrumentation
    Talk

    The size and complexity of modern ground-based telescopes, such as the Extremely Large Telescope (ELT), present new challenges for adaptive optics (AO) systems. Large separations between the deformable mirror (DM) and the wavefront sensor (WFS), with moving components in the optical path, mean the alignment between them is expected to regularly evolve during observations. Without tracking and...

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  9. Michaล‚ Michaล‚owski (Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznan)
    10/07/2025, 17:05
    The Extremely Large Telescope: Science and Instrumentation
    Talk

    Gravitational lensing is an important prediction of general relativity, providing both its test and a tool to detect faint but amplified sources and to measure masses of lenses. For some applications (e.g., testing the theory), a point-like source lensed by a point-like lens would be more advantageous. However, until now only one gravitationally lensed star has been resolved. Future telescopes...

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  10. Tim Morris (Durham University)
    10/07/2025, 17:20
    The Extremely Large Telescope: Science and Instrumentation
    Talk

    MOSAIC is the only instrument proposed for the Extremely Large Telescope (ELT) that makes use of the full 10 arc minute field of view of the telescope.. The Ground Layer Adaptive Optics (GLAO) system for MOSAIC does not reach the diffraction limit but is designed to provide partial AO correction over this entire field, providing up to 1.5x the flux within a MOS aperture over that obtained with...

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  11. The Extremely Large Telescope: Science and Instrumentation
    Poster

    The Blue Multi-Unit Spectroscopic Explorer (BlueMUSE) is an integral field spectrograph intended for installation on one of the telescopes of the Very Large Telescope (VLT) of the European Southern Observatory (ESO) in the early 2030s. BlueMUSE is built on the heritage of MUSE and is a blue-optimised (350-580nm), panoramic integral-field-spectrograph with a minimum field of view of 1 arcmin2...

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  12. The Extremely Large Telescope: Science and Instrumentation
    Poster

    The Blue Multi-Unit Spectroscopic Explorer (BlueMUSE) is an integral field spectrograph intended for installation on one of the telescopes of the Very Large Telescope (VLT) of the European Southern Observatory (ESO) in the early 2030s. BlueMUSE is built on the heritage of MUSE and is a blue-optimised (350-580nm), panoramic integral-field-spectrograph with a minimum field of view of 1 arcmin2...

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  13. The Extremely Large Telescope: Science and Instrumentation
    Poster

    The Blue Multi-Unit Spectroscopic Explorer (BlueMUSE) is an integral field spectrograph intended for installation on one of the telescopes of the Very Large Telescope (VLT) of the European Southern Observatory (ESO) in the early 2030s. BlueMUSE is built on the heritage of MUSE and is a blue-optimised (350-580nm), panoramic integral-field-spectrograph with a minimum field of view of 1 arcmin2...

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  14. The Extremely Large Telescope: Science and Instrumentation
    Poster

    Ground-based astronomy observations are contaminated by the emission and absorption of light by molecules in the atmosphere. This atmospheric emission is particularly a problem when observing at Near-InfraRed (NIR) wavelengths, where the atmospheric emission can be orders of magnitude brighter than the object being observed. Furthermore, the atmospheric emission spectrum varies both spatially...

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  15. The Extremely Large Telescope: Science and Instrumentation
    Poster

    MOSAIC is a multi-object and multi-integral field spectrograph that will use the widest possible field of view provided by the ELT. The instrument is conceived as a multi-purpose MOS for the ELT, covering the visible and near infrared bandwidth (0.45 โ€“ 1.8 ฮผm). Apart from the multi-object spectroscopy (MOS) mode, there is a deployable spatially resolved spectroscopy (mIFU) mode.
    MOSAIC will...

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  16. The Extremely Large Telescope: Science and Instrumentation
    Poster

    HARMONI (High-Angular Resolution Monolithic Optical and Near-infrared Integral field spectrograph) is a first-generation instrument for the Extremely Large Telescope (ELT). It is currently under the final design reviews, and is expected to cover a spectral range between 470 and 2450 nm (not simultaneously) with resolving powers from 3300 to 18000. The light from the entire field of view of the...

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  17. The Extremely Large Telescope: Science and Instrumentation
    Poster

    The European Extremely Large Telescope (ELT), currently under construction in Chile, will soon be the largest telescope in the world, designed to operate across both visible and infrared wavelengths.
    METIS is an imager and spectrometer developed for the ELT, covering wavelengths from 2.7 to approximately 14 microns. Within METIS, the LM-band spectrometer (LMS) provides high-resolution...

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