The following is a list of the largest optical reflecting telescopes sorted by mirror diameter. Note that two of the first three are not yet operational. This list does not currently include telescopes that are still in the conceptual/proposed stage, such as the Overwhelmingly Large Telescope or the European Extremely Large Telescope; the design stage, such as the Thirty Meter Telescope; or ones still in the early stages of manufacturing such as the Giant Magellan Telescope.
R. Amorín, J. Vílchez, and E. Pérez-Montero. (2011)cite arxiv:1105.1477Comment: To appear in JENAM
Symposium "Dwarf Galaxies: Keys to Galaxy Formation
and Evolution", P. Papaderos, G. Hensler, S. Recchi
(eds.). Lisbon, September 2010, Springer Verlag, in
press.
R. Barnes, and R. Greenberg. The Astrophysical Journal, 665 (1):
L67-L70(2007)cite arxiv:0706.3721Comment: 13 pages, 3 figures, 2 tables, accepted for publication in ApJ Letters. A version with full resolution figures is available at http://www.lpl.arizona.edu/~rory/research/xsp/resstab.pdf.
T. Boekholt, S. Zwart, and D. Heggie. (2023)cite arxiv:2308.14803Comment: Essay written for the Gravity Research Foundation 2023 Awards for Essays on Gravitation (Honorable Mention). Accepted by International Journal of Modern Physics D.
F. Christensen, and B. Ramsey. (2022)cite arxiv:2207.00512Comment: 45 pages, 21 figures. Invited chapter for the 'Handbook of X-ray and Gamma-ray Astrophysics (Eds C.Bambini and A Santangelo, Springer Singapore, expected publication in 2022).
T. Collaboration. (2023)cite arxiv:2311.09478Comment: 62 pages, 35 figures, published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters on May 12, 2022. See the published paper for the full authors list.