Virtual lecture: Babelsberg Starry Night on 23 October 2025
The 4MOST instrument is installed on the VISTA telescope in Chile
Credit: Credit: AIP/A. SaviaukOn Thursday, 23 October, Prof. Matthias Steinmetz will talk about the large-scale instrument project 4MOST – the 4-metre Multi-Object Spectroscopic Telescope – in the next virtual Babelsberg Starry Night. The video will be broadcast on the YouTube channel ‘Urknall, Weltall und das Leben’ at 8 p.m.
In his lecture, Matthias Steinmetz will give exciting insights into the work on 4MOST and describe the challenging path of the project – from the initial idea to the successful observation on 18 October 2025 at the VISTA telescope of the European Southern Observatory (ESO) in Chile, where 4MOST captured light from the night sky for the first time.
Now begins the scientific phase of 4MOST, one of the most ambitious spectroscopic instruments of our time. Instead of just taking pictures like regular telescopes, 4MOST captures light from up to 2,400 celestial objects at once and analyses it into 18,000 colour components. This lets us figure out the chemical makeup, movements, and physical properties of stars, galaxies, and other objects.
Supereye of the universe • 4MOST first light: Multiobjekt-Spektrograf in Chile | Matthias Steinmetz (in German)
Images
The 4MOST instrument is installed on the VISTA telescope in Chile
Big screen size [1000 x 667, 1.3 MB]
Original size [2165 x 1446, 5.1 MB]