Hale Telescope mirror.. It was completed in 1948 and is still in active use. The Hale Telescope represented the technological limit in building large optical telescopes for over 30 years. It was the largest telescope in the world until the Russian BTA-6 was built in 1976, and the second largest until the construction of the Keck Observatory Keck 1 in 1993. Hale supervised the building of the telescopes at the Mount Wilson Observatory with grants from the Carnegie Institution of Washington: the telescope in 1908 and the telescope in 1917. These telescopes were very successful, leading to the rapid advance in understanding
United Kingdom Infrared Telescope United Kingdom Infrared Telescope UKIRT, the United Kingdom Infra-Red Telescope, is a 3.8 metre (150 inch) infrared reflecting telescope, the second largest dedicated infrared (1 to 30 micrometres) telescope in the world. Until 2014 it was operated by the Joint Astronomy Centre in Hilo and located on Mauna Kea, Hawai'i as part of Mauna Kea Observatory. It was owned by the United Kingdom Science and Technology Facilities Council. UKIRT is currently being funded by NASA and operated under scientific cooperation between Lockheed Martin Advanced Technology Center, the University of Hawaii, and the U. S. Naval Observatory. The telescope is set