The Hobby-Eberly Telescope

The Hobby-Eberly Telescope has achieved first-light, is in commissioning, and is nearing operation at McDonald Observatory in West Texas. The telescope has a novel design with a spherical main mirror 11 meters in diameter and a moving spherical-aberration-corrector which moves to track the celestial object. The corrector illuminates a 9.2-meter diameter piece of the main mirror. The telescope is notable because of its large collecting area and its low, $13.5 million cost, excluding instruments. The Hobby-Eberly Telescope is a joint project of the University of Texas at Austin, Pennsylvania State University, Stanford University, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universitat in Munich and Georg-August-Universitat in Gottingen. The last of the telescope's initial instruments are expected to be installed in early to mid 2000.