Foto de stock - Control room, The William Herschel Telescope WHT, Roque de los Muchachos Observatory, La Palma, Canary Islands, Spain The William Herschel Telescope, inaugurated in 1987, is one of the largest optical telescopes of its kind in Europe, with a primary mirror of diameter 4 2 metres It is a general-purpose facility, instrumented to allow a wide range of astronomical observations, from the optical wavelengths to the infrared, and covering both imaging and spectroscopy Through continued development of instrumentation, particularly in the field of adaptive optics, the William Herschel Telescope remains at the forefront of astronomical research The telescope played an important role in discovering the accelerated expansion of the Universe, and it has made important contributions in the fields of observational cosmology, gamma-ray bursts, galaxy dynamics and star evolution