Instruments on large optical telescopes -- A case study

Understand

In the distant past, telescopes were known, first and foremost, for the sizes of their apertures.

• Advances in technology are now enabling astronomers to build extremely powerful instruments to the extent that instruments have now achieved importance comparable or even exceeding the usual importance accorded to the apertures of the telescopes.
• However, the cost of successive generations of instruments has risen at a rate noticeably above that of the rate of inflation.
• Here, given the vast sums of money now being expended on optical telescopes and their instrumentation, I argue that astronomers must undertake "cost-benefit" analysis for future planning.