Astralis is leading the design and construction of MAVIS, the $AU32-million adaptive-optics system on the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope (VLT), one of the world’s most powerful ground-based optical telescopes.
The Conceptual Design of MAVIS, the Multi-Conjugate Assisted Visible Imager and Spectrograph, was approved by ESO council in early Dec 2020.
Despite COVID, this milestone was passed on time and on budget, and the team received praise from the ESO review committee. Communication within the consortium, which includes Australian, Italian, and French teams, worked very effectively, leading to a healthy, efficient instrument design.
The Multi-conjugate Adaptive-optics Visible Imager-Spectrograph (MAVIS) is a general-purpose instrument for exploiting the highest possible angular resolution of any single optical telescope available in the next decade, either on Earth or in space, and with sensitivity comparable to or better than larger aperture facilities.
