Evy's Eyes on the Sky Trivia Quiz

Answer: Hawaii

The Gemini North telescope is one of several large telescopes located at the Keck Observatory on the summit of Mauna Kea, an extinct volcano in Hawaii. The summit is 14,000 feet (over 4,000 meters) tall. The thinness of the atmosphere with its attendant lack of water vapor makes for excellent viewing conditions, but care must be taken by the scientists and technicians there as each breath takes in only 39% of the normal amount of oxygen. Nobody actually sleeps at the summit, and at the end of a night's observing, the astronomers drive down to the "halfway house" called Hale Pohaku, where the air is much denser.

Answer: William Herschel

The William Herschel reflector telescope sits atop the extinct volcano Los Muchachos at La Palma, Canary Islands. This British telescope's mirror is 165 inches (4.2m) across. There are also observatories representing multiple other countries including Scandinavia, Germany and Italy. The full name of the volcano is Roque de los Muchachos meaning "Rock of the Boys".

Answer: Kitt Peak

Kitt Peak is America's foremost ground-based astronomical research center. Its largest optical telescope is the Mayall reflector with a 150-inch (3.81m) mirror. Also at Kitt Peak is the McMath Solar Facility, the world's largest solar telescope.

Answer: electronic workshops

A modern observatory has to be almost a city in itself. Labs, workshops, living quarters, bathrooms, kitchens and more are common. A more recent development of today's observatories are remote-control telescopes. It is quite possible to sit in a control room at Cambridge and remotely operate a telescope thousands of miles away in Chile or Hawaii.

Answer: AST/RO

The Antarctic Submillimeter Telescope and Remote Observatory (AST/RO) is located at the South Pole, where conditions are exceptionally good for this kind of research. Although the climate is somewhat daunting, the viewing conditions are excellent and the observatory is in constant use. Astro, by the way, was the name of the family dog in the cartoon series "The Jetsons".

Answer: Palomar

The 200-inch (5.08m) Hale reflector at Palomar was brought into action in 1948, and for many years was in a class by itself. Though it is no longer the world's largest, it maintains its position in the forefront of astronomical research. Electronic upgrades in recent years have made the telescope far more effective than it was when it was completed.

Answer: the diameter of its mirror

The light that astronomers see from the ground is collected by the telescope's mirror. The optical mirror of a telescope must be shaped and polished to incredibly fine tolerances to minimize distortion. Some mirrors are of single piece construction while others are made up of multiple segments.

The final optical curve of the mirror must be accurate to a limit of one thousandth the width of a human hair.

Answer: Puerto Rico

The Arecibo radio telescope is the world's largest radio dish telescope. The huge dish is approximately 1000 feet (304.8m) across. While it can survey a very wide area of sky, the dish is set in a natural hollow in the terrain which means it is not steerable the way free-standing above-ground radio dishes are.

Answer: Very Large Telescope

The Very Large Telescope installation at Paranal consists of four separately housed 323-inch (8.2m) mirrors. Antu is the first unit, Kueyen, the second, Melipal, the third and Yepun, the fourth. Working together as an interferometer, these instruments deliver resolution equivalent to a single 624-inch (16m) telescope. The names come from the Chilean Mapuche language.

Answer: hexagonal

The mirrors of the two Keck Telescopes at Mauna Kea are made up of 36 hexagonal segments fitted together to form the correct optical curve. When the two telescopes are operating together they could, in theory, be capable of distinguishing a car's headlights separately from a distance of 15,000 miles (25,000 kilometers).