Synthesis Telescope Building the world's largest optical telescope Ever since Galileo first turned his telescope towards Jupiter in 1609, astronomers have wanted bigger and bigger telescopes.
Larger telescopes bring two advantages.
First, the possibility to study fainter and more distant objects, and second, the ability to study finer and finer detail. The limitations of current technology mean that the largest optical telescopes produced today have collecting mirrors up to 10m in diameter. This is a far cry from Galileo's telescope, but not nearly large enough to explore some of the most exciting phenomena occurring in our Galaxy and beyond, too small to be seen with telescopes of even this size. Conventional telescopes reveal fine detail by bringing together light from different parts of the collecting mirror to a single focus. The larger the mirror, the further apart these parts can be, and the sharper the resulting image.