noaoann08015 — Announcement

Huge Lenses for Dark Energy Camera

25 June 2008

UK astronomers have reached a milestone in the construction of one of the largest-ever cameras designed to detect the mysterious component of the Universe known as Dark Energy.  The pieces of glass for the five unique lenses in the Dark Energy Camera have been shipped from the US to France to be shaped and polished into their final form. The largest of the five is one meter in diameter, making it one of the largest lenses in the world.  The camera will be placed on NSF’s Blanco 4-meter telescope at Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile to conduct a project called the Dark Energy Survey (DES), as well as other observations for the astronomical community.  DES observations will start in 2011 and continue until 2016.

Links

For more, see https://www.darkenergysurvey.org/