VLT Control Room

Hub of the Observatory — The VLT Control Room

Daytime routine work in the Contral Room at the observing modules for ANTU (right) and KUEYEN (left).

The Control Building is located on a "shelf" below the main observing platform at the top of the Paranal Mountain. It is the true hub of the Paranal Observatory and it is from here that the VLT telescopes and instruments are controlled by the observing teams. Daytime maintenance routines are also carried out by the ESO engineers via the computer terminals and monitors here.

Each of the four Unit Telescopes is controlled from a specific area (a "module") within the Control Room. From here, the night assistants, engineers and astronomers perform the observations. The work includes continuous monitoring and optimisation of the telescope status, pointing of the telescope towards the celestial objects to be observed, adjustments of the instrument (camera, spectrograph) before the exposures, as well as subsequent transfer and storage of the data from the instrument and a first evaluation of the results.

The fact that all work is done from a single room greatly facilitates the direct interaction between the different groups of observers.

Crédit:

ESO

À propos de l'image

Identification:eso0021k
Type:Photographique
Date de publication:16 juin 2000
Communiqués de presse en rapport:eso0021
Taille:3000 x 2353 px

À propos de l'objet

Nom:Paranal, VLT Control Room
Type:Unspecified : Technology : Observatory : Facility
Catégorie:Paranal

Formats des images

Grand JPEG
1,6 Mio
JPEG taille écran
217,8 Kio

Fonds d'écran

1024x768
222,5 Kio
1280x1024
348,2 Kio
1600x1200
493,8 Kio
1920x1200
589,2 Kio
2048x1536
794,6 Kio