Artist’s animation showing the tip-tilt motion of the M5 mirror

This animation, based on engineering renderings, shows the tip-tilt movement of the ELT’s M5 mirror in slow motion. As part of the ELT’s adaptive optics system, M5 will adjust its position 10 times per second to stabilise the images, compensating for perturbations caused by the telescope mechanisms, wind vibrations, and atmospheric turbulence. For scale, the person standing next to the mirror towards the end of the video is 1.60 metres tall.