Fred Lawrence Whipple Observatory, Amado, Arizona
The major instrument on Mt. Hopkins is the MMT Observatory's
6.5-m-diameter optical telescope (operated jointly by SAO with the
University of Arizona). Others include the Very Energetic Radiation Imaging Telescope Array System (VERITAS), an array of Cerenkov telescopes operating at the FLWO Basecamp; the original 10-m gamma-ray Cerenkov telescope;
the Peters Automated Infrared Imaging
Telescope (PAIRITEL), a 1.3-m infrared telescope (formerly the northern
2MASS telescope, now operated by SAO); a 1.2-m imaging optical/infrared
telescope; and the 1.5-m Tillinghast spectroscopic telescope. FLWO is
also home to HAT, the Hungarian Automated Telescope.
The Las Campanas Observatory on Cerro Las Campanas in Chile, operates twin 6.5-m optical telescopes for a consortium of institutions, which includes Harvard University, the Carnegie Observatories, MIT, the University of Michigan, and the University of Arizona.
Separated by 60 m, the twin telescopes afford
fine "natural seeing," from an elevation of 2400 m (8000 feet) in the
Chilean Andes and unparalleled access to the Southern Hemisphere skies
The MMT Observatory, a 6.5-meter-diameter optical telescope, is
located on the summit of Mt. Hopkins at the Fred Lawrence Whipple
Observatory, 30 miles south of Tucson, Arizona. The telescope (operated
jointly by SAO and the University of Arizona) includes a suite of
advanced wide-field imagers and spectrographs developed and deployed for
the MMT by SAO scientists. This innovative facility was recently
converted to a single mirror.
South Pole Telescope, Antarctica
The South Pole Telescope (SPT), a 10-meter-diameter telescope located at
the National Science Foundation's South Pole research station, achieved
first light in February 2007. Designed to conduct large-area
millimeter- and submillimeter-wave surveys of faint, low-contrast
emission, this telescope is a collaboration among the University of
Chicago, University of California (Berkeley), Case Western Reserve
University, University of Illinois, and SAO. It is funded by the
National Science Foundation Office of Polar Programs, private foundation
grants, and the Kavli Institute for Cosmological Physics.
Submillimeter Array, Mauna Kea, Hawaii
The Submillimeter Array is an 8-element interferometer operating in the wavelength range of 0.3 to 2 millimeters, located atop Mauna Kea in Hawaii. It is a collaboration between SAO and the Institute of Astronomy and Astrophysics of the Academia Sinica of Taiwan.
The 1.2 Meter Millimeter-Wave Telescope
For over three decades the CfA 1.2 meter telescope and its twin instrument in Chile have been mainly dedicated to obtaining what is by far the most extensive, uniform, and widely-used survey of dense, star-forming molecular clouds in our Galaxy. A total of 24 PhD dissertations have so far been written based on observations or instrumental work with these telescopes, and many more undergraduate students have participated in the observations either in course laboratories or as observing assistants.
The Very Energetic Radiation Imaging Telescope Array System (VERITAS) consists of an array of four 12-m optical reflectors for
gamma-ray astronomy. The design, based on an existing 10-m gamma-ray
telescope at Whipple Observatory, consists of an array of imaging
telescopes deployed such that they permit the maximum versatility and
give the highest sensitivity in the 50 GeV-50 TeV band. Funded by NSF,
DOE, and SAO, it is operated by SAO for a collaboration of colleges and