Design approved of super camera with University of Groningen contributions

The European Extremely Large Telescope (eELT), which is currently being built in Chile, captures light with a main mirror that has a diameter of almost 40 metres and can therefore take highly detailed images of the universe. The design for the camera to capture these images, MICADO, was approved this week. RUG professor of astronomy Eline Tolstoy, as ‘project scientist Europe’, is responsible for MICADO's scientific programme, and other RUG researchers are also collaborating on the project.

FSE Science Newsroom | René Fransen

The eELT, under construction in Chile by ESO, the European Southern Observatory, is intended to be operational in a few years. Eventually, it will be the size of a football stadium. Components for the eELT are being built in Dwingeloo, among other places, at the Netherlands Institute for Radio Astronomy ASTRON, with the cooperation of RUG astronomers.

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The name MICADO stands for multi-adaptive optics imaging camera for deep observations. An extremely large telescope also requires an extremely large camera: MICADO weighs 20 tonnes and is six meters high. The camera is specially equipped to capture infrared light. MICADO is about as sensitive as the camera of the James Webb Space Telescope but can observe more details. It also contains all kinds of filters to make specific observations and a system to break up the light into individual wavelengths, a spectroscope.

Tolstoy, who is attached to the RUG's Kapteyn Institute of Astronomy, has been involved in the project as a researcher for 15 years: ‘I am extremely proud of the Dutch team. Thanks to their efforts, the groundbreaking research we can do with the ELT comes a big step closer. I can't wait until we can look sharper than ever into the universe.'

See also the press release from the European Southern Observatory ESO and NOVA (Dutch)