Very Large Telescope (VLT)

"The Very Large Telescope array (VLT) consists of four Unit Telescopes with main mirrors of 8.2m diameter and four movable 1.8m diameter Auxiliary Telescopes. The telescopes can work together, to form a giant 'interferometer', the ESO Very Large Telescope Interferometer, allowing astronomers to see details up to 25 times finer than with the individual telescopes. The light beams are combined in the VLTI using a complex system of mirrors in underground tunnels where the light paths must be kept equal to distances less than 1/1000 mm over a hundred metres. With this kind of precision the VLTI can reconstruct images with an angular resolution of milliarcseconds, equivalent to distinguishing the two headlights of a car at the distance of the Moon."

非常大的望远镜（VLT）阵列由四个主镜直径为8.2米的单元望远镜和四个可移动的1.8米直径辅助望远镜组成。这些望远镜可以协同工作，形成一个巨大的‘干涉仪’，即欧洲南方天文台非常大的望远镜干涉仪，使天文学家能够看到比单个望远镜细25倍的细节。在地下隧道中，通过复杂的镜子系统将光束结合在一起，在百米范围内，光路必须保持等于小于1/1000毫米的距离。借助这种精度，VLTI可以重建出角分辨率达到毫弧秒的图像，相当于在月球距离上分辨出一辆汽车的两前灯。

"The 8.2m diameter Unit Telescopes can also be used individually. With one such telescope, images of celestial objects as faint as magnitude 30 can be obtained in a one-hour exposure. This corresponds to seeing objects that are four billion (four thousand million) times fainter than what can be seen with the unaided eye."

8.2米口径的单台望远镜也可以单独使用。使用一台这样的望远镜，可以在一小时内获得视星等30的天体图像。这相当于能够观测到比人眼能看见的暗四十亿（四十亿）倍的天体。

The VLT is located on Cerro Paranal in Chile. Cerro Paranal is a mountain in the Atacama desert of northern Chile that is home to the Paranal Observatory. The elevation is 2,635 metres (8,645 ft) above sea level.

VLT 位于智利的 Cerro Paranal 山上。Cerro Paranal 是智利北部阿塔卡马沙漠中的一个山峰，是 Paranal 观测站的所在地。其海拔高度为 2,635 米（8,645 英尺）以上。