Status and perspective of Subaru Telescope Project

Subaru telescope is a Japanese 8.2-m optical-IR telescope under construction on the 4,130-m altitude summit of Mauna Kea, Hawaii. The project is in the sixth financial year of the construction plan of nine years. The construction is now coming into the assembling phase, and we are starting to get some realistic qualitative estimation of the performance which will be achieved by Subaru telescope. We report here the general status of the construction, and part of such recent perspective. Some more details of individual parts of construction are described by other authors.© (1997) COPYRIGHT SPIE--The International Society for Optical Engineering. Downloading of the abstract is permitted for personal use only.