1. Review: How do telescopes work? They gather energy from a large area and concentrate it to a small area.

2. The northern hemisphere's most powerful telescopes are the Kecks in Hawaii, two large telescopes that can combine their light as if they were one gigantic telescope. Be sure to find out about their Adaptive Optics that can produce sharper images than is usually possible from a ground based telescope. The Hubble Space Telescope produces the clearest images however, and there are many other large observatories that are making discoveries about the Universe.

3. Work with a partner to read through information about the worlds most powerful telescopes and take notes on information to answer the following questions. Do not answer the questions until you have gone through all the materials.

4. Compare and contrast the Kecks with the Hubble Space Telescope using the same six questions. Honors classes also compare and contrast these with one other major or famous observatory such as the Spitzer Space Telescope, the Arecibo Observatory or the Chandra X-Ray Observatory. Use any available sources to take notes on the same information you used to answer the questions about the Kecks.

5. Make a Venn diagram to compare and contrast these telescopes.

This homework assignment is due when your notebook is graded.