The largest telescope that will ever be built*

The asterisk is important. ■ AD: ?‍? NordVPN's best deal is here: https://nordvpn.com/tomscott - with a 30-day money-back guarantee. ■ More on the ELT: @ESOobservatory https://eso.org <br> <br>The Extremely Large Telescope, in Paranal, Chile, is probably going to be the largest optical telescope that will ever be constructed. I was invited out there by the UK Science and Technology Facilities Council and the European Southern Observatory, and I wasn't going to turn down a chance like that. <br> <br>? DISCLAIMER <br>While the STFC and ESO invited me and arranged the logistics after arrival into the Antofagasta region, I was not paid for this (not even my travel costs) and I have sole editorial control over the video. This is not an advert. <br> <br>? CREDITS <br>Editor: Michelle Martin https://twitter.com/mrsmmartin <br>Script assistant: Laura Conlon <br>Audio mix: Graham Haerther and Manni Simon at Standard Studios <br> <br>Thanks to Alex Fyans, Hannah Conduit, and William Taylor from STFC; to Francisco Rodríguez, Juan Carlos, and Michele Cirasuolo from ESO; and to everyone I met at Paranal! <br> <br>? IMAGE CREDITS <br>Images and footage from ESO is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://www.eso.org/public/outreach/copyright/ <br> <br>First image of an explanet: https://www.eso.org/public/images/26a_big-vlt/ <br>Stars orbiting the supermassive black hole: https://www.eso.org/public/aus....tralia/videos/eso182 <br>VLT light path: https://www.eso.org/public/vid....eos/LightPath-VLT202 <br>VLTI delay lines: https://www.eso.org/public/videos/esocast13/ <br>ELT render: https://www.eso.org/public/ima....ges/elt-fulldome-1_c <br> <br>? PREVIOUS VIDEOS <br>Previously, in Arecibo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d3WiRunOsWY <br>and in Parkes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6o38C-ultvw <br> <br> <br>I'm at https://tomscott.com <br>on Twitter at https://twitter.com/tomscott <br>on Facebook at https://facebook.com/tomscott <br>and on Instagram as tomscottgo