What is the GTC?

The Gran Telescopio CANARIAS (GTC), with a total surface equivalent to a 10.4m single circular mirror in diameter, is currently the biggest telescope in the world and one of the most advance and with the best performance for the astronomical research.

The GTC primary mirror is formed by 36 hexagonal components. The GTC has also a secondary mirror and a tertiary mirror in order to feed the foci where the scientific instruments would be placed.

The telescope mount, mechanical steel structure that holds the mirrors, is altazimuth, in other words, the movements are done following the physical axis, the horizontal and vertical ones. The telescope will be able to observe the optical and infrared light coming from the celestial objects.

GTC will be the last of the so called generation of 8-10 meter telescopes. Therefore it has tried to improved the design of the predecessors, learning from their experiences.

At the time of it scientific operations, it will be the telescope with the largest light collecting surface: 75.7 square meters. Apart from its large collecting surface another key feature would be the image quality. GTC will make use of two techniques to optimize the image quality namely: the active optics and, further beyond, the adaptive optics.

The active optics allow to align, deform and move the segments that form the primary mirror. It also allows to move and align the secondary mirror, with the main aim of keeping its position in a precise way, independently of the external conditions (climate, temperature, gravity, manufacture faults, ect...) in order to avoid any imaging degradation.

The light travels million of kilometers from it origins in a faraway start or galaxy, without suffering any perturbation, it is just in the last dozens of kilometers when it goes through the earth atmosphere and it gets degrade.

The adaptive optics is an ambitious technique that, applying very fast corrections in real time with deformable mirrors (of the order of thousands of corrections by second), manage to the aberrations suffer by the light in its way through the atmosphere.

In addition, the telescope itself is protected by a dome built to avoid degradation of the images due to the possible external and internal turbulences. The dome also includes a mechanical structure designed to allow astronomical observations free of vibrations which could reduce the imaging quality.

The GTC plans to maximize the observing time by using an observing queue system. This procedure will allow to choose automatically what type of instrumentation and observing are best suitable for the atmospheric conditions and the installation provided every time.

The GTC will also make use of an advanced control system and will have a high reliability of operation through a preventive maintenance program designed to locate potential malfunctions before they happen, ensuring that downtime caused by these failures in the system are keep to a minimum.

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