![]() The selfie taken by the telescope of its mirrors. As a result, the two lateral supports flex imperceptibly and that movement – of just a few nanometers – is transmitted to the mirror to get it into position. ![]() The secret lies in a very rigid H-shaped titanium part and another part that presses its central bar. They do this using precision motors and gears, but at first glance do not look particularly special. And they do so without any lubrication and at temperatures of -230✬. To do so, actuators that can move in steps that are 10,000 times smaller than the diameter of a human hair are used. Now it is clear which is which.īased on this information, the next step consists of adjusting the position of each mirror with microscopic movements. One by one, the technicians inclined each mirror by nanometers to discover the only point that had moved in a new photo. The next step involved identifying which image corresponded to each reflector. Luckily, the images were closely grouped together, which says a lot about the quality of the telescope’s structure, given that it resisted the vibrations and acceleration of launch very well. The telescope took hundreds of photos to determine where HD84406 was, over an area not much bigger than the size of the Full Moon. It is located in Ursa Major, an area that is short on bright stars.Īs was expected, the first photos taken with the telescope showed not one, but 18 bright points – i.e. For this task, the rather prosaically named HD84406 has been chosen. To do this, it first focuses on a bright star that cannot be confused with others around it.
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