Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astronomy
Scientific paper
Dec 1976
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=1976msngr...7....2w&link_type=abstract
The Messenger, vol. 7, p. 2-3
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Astronomy
Scientific paper
A first look at the sky through the ESO 3.6 m telescope with its mirror aluminized was taken during the night of November 7-8. The "first light" to a telescope is a unique moment, and it was celebrated with a midnight tea. But apart from that, we had many troubles that night. Obviously you cannot expect everything to work at once in an instrument as complex as the 3.6 m telescope; much time must be allowed for debugging the entire system. The people who work with it have to learn how to handle the various procedures, but after a very successful aluminization, we had nearly forgotten that something could go wrong. And so, during the night of first light, the images (what a disaster!) looked like small hearts. Very romantic, although not exactly what astronomers are looking for in the sky. It took us two days to find and cure that fault. The 11-ton main mirror had chosen to rest on two ofthe back supports only. From the third one it kept a respectful distance of 1 mm.
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