Gemini North Telescope Inaugurated

A new mammoth telescope has begun to inspect the northern sky. The 8-meter Gemini North telescope, pictured above , was dedicated last week in Hawaii, with images documenting its unprecedented abilities being released. Within two years , sister telescope Gemini South will begin similar observations of the southern sky from Chile. The Gemini telescopes will collect an enormous amount of visible and infrared light . In the infrared, a Gemini can resolve objects that even appear blurred to the Hubble Space Telescope . To achieve such high resolution, the Gemini's use adaptive optics , a technique that continually flexes Gemini's main mirrors to counteract the defocusing effects of Earth's turbulent atmosphere . A seven-nation collaboration is completing the Geminis under the direction of the US National Science Foundation .