Vatican Advanced Technology Telescope
The Vatican Advanced Technology Telescope , or VATT for short, is a 1.8 meter diameter Gregory telescope , which is suitable for visible and infrared light. It is located on Mount Graham , in southeast Arizona at an altitude of 3,178 meters and is part of the Mount Graham International Observatory and belongs to the Vatican Observatory in partnership with the University of Arizona . The telescope was mainly financed by donations from Fred and Alice P. Lennon and Thomas J. Bannan, and it was completed in 1993 ( first light ).
The main mirror of the telescope has a focal length that corresponds to the diameter, so that despite the Gregory arrangement, it has a compact design. The VATT CCD Imager - Vatt4k , a CCD image sensor with 4064 × 4064 pixels, is connected to the telescope and records a region of the sky measuring 12.5 × 12.5 arc minutes . Filters for interesting spectral ranges can be inserted.
The telescope is mainly used for astrophotography and photometry . Important results are:
- the discovery of massive compact halo objects in the Andromeda galaxy ,
- the validation of the Stromvil photometric filter system ,
- Evidence of the evolution of shape and size of galaxies through the history of the universe,
- Discovery of the first binary vestoid ,
- Characterization and classification based on the visible spectral distribution of over 100 trans-Neptunian objects , most of them darker than 21 mag .
See also
- the Large Binocular Telescope
- and the Heinrich Hertz Telescope
Web links
- VATT homepage
- Eastern Arizona College's Discovery Park Campus - Guided tours of Mount Graham International Observatory.
Coordinates: 32 ° 42 ′ 4.8 ″ N , 109 ° 53 ′ 32.5 ″ W.