Uses of Very Large Telescopes for Galaxy Research

Abstract

SummaryMany areas of extragalactic research will greatly benefit from observations with a very large telescope. We concentrate, here, on four of them as illustrative examples:First we briefly discuss the study of the absorption lines in quasar spectra.In the second section we suggest the possibility of doing serendipity large field imaging during high spectral resolution exposures on point sources.In sections 3 and 4 we discuss two topics which have long been recognized as important drivers for the construction of very large telescopes, the determination of the nature of the missing mass, and the study of elliptical galaxies.