First light (astronomy) in the context of "Víctor M. Blanco Telescope"

The Stratospheric Observatory For Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA) was an 80/20 joint project of NASA and the German Aerospace Center (DLR) to construct and maintain an airborne observatory. NASA awarded the contract for development of the aircraft, operation of the observatory and management of the American part of the project to the Universities Space Research Association (USRA) in 1996. The DSI (German SOFIA Institute; German: Deutsches SOFIA Institut) managed the German parts of the project which were primarily science-and telescope-related. SOFIA's telescope saw first light on May 26, 2010. SOFIA was the successor to the Kuiper Airborne Observatory. During 10-hour, overnight flights, it observed celestial magnetic fields, star-forming regions, comets, nebulae, and the Galactic Center.

Science flights concluded after the landing of the 921st and final flight in the early morning of September 29, 2022. The Boeing 747SP that carried the telescope has been preserved and put on display at the Pima Air & Space Museum near Tucson, Arizona.

Spectro-Polarimetric High-contrast Exoplanet REsearch (VLT-SPHERE) is an adaptive optics system and coronagraphic facility at the Very Large Telescope (VLT). It provides direct imaging as well as spectroscopic and polarimetric characterization of exoplanet systems. The instrument operates in the visible and near infrared, achieving exquisite image quality and contrast over a small field of view around bright targets.

Results from SPHERE complement those from other planet finder projects, which include HARPS, CoRoT, and the Kepler Mission. The instrument was installed on Unit Telescope "Melipal" (UT3) and achieved first light in May, 2014. At the time of installation, it was the latest of a series of second generation VLT-instruments such as X-shooter, KMOS and MUSE.

The Galileo National Telescope, (Italian: Telescopio Nazionale Galileo; TNG; code: Z19) is a 3.58-meter Italian telescope, located at the Roque de los Muchachos Observatory on the island of La Palma in the Canary Islands, Spain. The TNG is operated by the "Fundación Galileo Galilei, Fundación Canaria", a non-profit institution, on behalf of the Italian National Institute of Astrophysics (INAF). The telescope saw first light in 1998 and is named after the Italian Renaissance astronomer Galileo Galilei.

Observations at the TNG can be proposed through the Italian Time Allocation Committee (TAC) which assigns, based on the scientific merit of the proposals, 75% of the available time. The rest of the time is at disposal of the Spanish and international astronomical communities. The TNG is open to new proposals two times a year, typically in March–April and September–October.

Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) is a space telescope for NASA's Explorer program, designed to search for exoplanets using the transit method in an area 400 times larger than that covered by the Kepler mission. It was launched on 18 April 2018, atop a Falcon 9 launch vehicle and was placed into a highly elliptical 13.70-day orbit around the Earth. The first light image from TESS was taken on 7 August 2018, and released publicly on 17 September 2018.

In the two-year primary mission, TESS was expected to detect about 1,250 transiting exoplanets orbiting the targeted stars, and an additional 13,000 orbiting stars not targeted but observed. After the end of the primary mission around 4 July 2020, scientists continued to search its data for more planets, while the extended missions acquires additional data. As of 1 July 2025, TESS had identified 7,655 candidate exoplanets, of which 638 had been confirmed.

The BTA-6 (Russian: Большой Телескоп Альт-азимутальный, romanized: Bolshoi Teleskop Alt-azimutalnyi, lit. 'Large Altazimuth Telescope') is a 6-metre (20 ft) aperture optical telescope at the Special Astrophysical Observatory located in the Zelenchuksky District of Karachay-Cherkessia on the north side of the Caucasus Mountains in southern Russia.

The BTA-6 achieved first light in late 1975, making it the largest telescope in the world until 1990, when it was surpassed by the partially constructed Keck 1. It pioneered the technique, now standard in large astronomical telescopes, of using an altazimuth mount with a computer-controlled derotator.

The High Accuracy Radial Velocity Planet Searcher (HARPS) is a high-precision echelle planet-finding spectrograph installed in 2002 on the ESO's 3.6m telescope at La Silla Observatory in Chile. The first light was achieved in February 2003. HARPS has discovered over 130 exoplanets to date, with the first one in 2004, making it the most successful planet finder behind the Kepler space telescope. It is a second-generation radial-velocity spectrograph, based on experience with the ELODIE and CORALIE instruments.