Free Astronomy Magazine September-October 2023

SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2023 sembling the structure of the tele- scope dome at a staggering pace. Visibly changing each day, the steel structure will soon acquire the famil- iar round shape typical of telescope domes. The telescope mirrors and other components are being built by com- panies in Europe, where work is also progressing well. ESO’s ELT will have a pioneering five-mirror opti- cal design, which includes a giant main mirror (M1) made up of 798 hexagonal segments. More than 70% of the blanks and supports for these segments have now been T his June 2023 image was taken from a webcam of ESO's ELT construction site at Cerro Arma- zones in Chile's Atacama Desert, where engineers and construction workers are currently assembling the telescope dome structure at a breakneck pace. Noticeably chang- ing every day, the steel structure will soon acquire the familiar rounded shape typical of domes. The starry background is dominated by the core of the Milky Way, our galaxy, and by the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds, two dwarf galax- ies that accompany ours. [ESO]