Tech leader Charles Simonyi provides a wide-angle view of the telescope that bears his family name

September 30, 2024 | Alan Boyle | GeekWire

The Vera C. Rubin Observatory’s Simonyi Survey Telescope will make use of an 8.4-meter primary mirror and an 3.5-meter secondary mirror. Note the size of the support structure compared with the size of the workers on the platform. (Credit: Rubin Observatory / NSF / AURA / F. Munoz Arancibia)

With the ramping up of the Simonyi Survey Telescope at the Vera C. Rubin Observatory in Chile, Microsoft software architect Charles Simonyi joins a select group of scientists and technologists, policymakers and philanthropists who have had world-class telescopes and observatories named after them.