Presentation 1 : Invited
R&D for the Extremely Large Telescopes (ASHRA)
M. Ferrari
During the last years, proposals have arisen for the next generation
of ground-based telescopes, dubbed ELTs for Extremely Large Telesccopes.
In these future telescopes the size of the primary range from 20m for
the next generation CFHT (ng-CFHT) to 100m for the ESO OverWhelmingly
Large telescope (OWL). If this next generation of telescopes represents
a large step in optical design and opto-mechanical concepts it will
particularly need advanced active and adaptive optics techniques.
For the development of these techniques a large R&D effort will be
necessary in the next 5-10 years. A review of the various ELTs projects
and the associated R&D is presented.