• Question: with the complete demonstrator model of the telescope and instrument you are working on, what do you hope to observe?

    Asked by Deku !! to Tom, alistairglasse on 13 May 2025.
    • Photo: Alistair Glasse

      Alistair Glasse answered on 13 May 2025:

      For JWST and the ELT we didn’t build a demonstrator that could observe anything because it would be too expensive. Instead we build prototypes of small parts of the telescope or instrument when we’re not sure if they’ll work the way we expect.

      Right now, we’re testing a new sort of motor (its called a piezo-electric actuator) which has never been used at the very cold temperatures (-200 Celsius) which we need it to work at in our ELT instrument (METIS/LMS). Last week we ran tests where the results look like it won’t do what we need, so we have to think of another way of driving our moving parts…

Comments