Uploaded June 2025 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago

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Ground-based telescopes have a trick up their sleeve to deal with atmospheric turbulence: lasers. By creating artificial stars in the sky and monitoring how blurred they are we can obtain very sharp images of the cosmos. Together with our industrial partners we are now testing next-generation lasers for both our Very Large Telescope (VLT) and our Extremely Large Telescope (ELT).

Learn more about telescope lasers: youtube.com/watch?v=g_QC2cLroDc

Check our ELT playlist: youtube.com/playlist?list=PLSZ2Jv0bEZHy7el0mIrOMRKkhCw8pemaZ

Learn more about ESO’s ELT: elt.eso.org

More about this video: eso.org/public/videos/eltu_Lasers

Credit: ESO

Directed by: Angelos Tsaousis
Editing: Angelos Tsaousis
Written by: Bárbara Ferreira
Music: Jon Kennedy – They Made Us Too Many.
Footage and photos: ESO, Luis Calçada, Angelos Tsaousis, Jose Porte, Mahdi Zamani (mahdizamani.com/), Christoph Malin (christophmalin.com/), Daniele Gasparri (www.astroatacama.com), Sebastian Kammann (LJMU)/ Nick Risinger (skysurvey.org).
Web and technical support: Raquel Yumi Shida and E. Arango.
Acknowledgements: TNO, TOPTICA.