Roque de los Muchachos Observatory

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Roque de los Muchachos Observatory

Overview of some of the telescopes at the Roque de los Muchachos Observatory.

Organization

IAC

Location

La Palma, Canary Islands, Atlantic Ocean (Island is part of Spain)

Coordinates

28°46′N, 17°53′W

Altitude

2,500 m

Website
IAC website

Telescopes
MAGIC (telescope)	17 m gamma-ray imaging Cherenkov telescope
Gran Telescopio Canarias	10.4 m reflecting telescope, under construction
William Herschel Telescope	4.2 m reflecting telescope
Telescopio Nazionale Galileo	3.5 m reflecting telescope
Nordic Optical Telescope	2.56 m reflecting telescope
Isaac Newton Telescope	2.5 m reflecting telescope
Liverpool Telescope	2.0 m robotic telescope (also reflecting)
Mercator Telescope	1.2 m reflecting telescope
Swedish Solar Telescope	1.0 m refracting vacuum solar telescope
Jacobus Kapteyn Telescope	1.0 m reflecting telescope
Dutch Open Telescope	0.45 m reflecting solar telescope
Carlsberg Meridian Telescope	0.18 m refracting telescope
SuperWASP	5 wide angle cameras with 0.11 m diameter lenses
HEGRA	17 Cherenkov telescopes, 3 m diameter now dismantled

Roque de los Muchachos Observatory is an astronomical observatory located in the municipality of Garafía on the island of La Palma. The observatory site is operated by the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias which is based on nearby Tenerife, and it is part of European Northern Observatory.

The seeing statistics make it the second best location for optical and infrared astronomy in the Northern Hemisphere, after Mauna Kea Observatory, Hawaii. The site has some of the premier astronomical facilities in the Northern Hemisphere, including the adaptive optics corrected Swedish Solar Telescope which provides the highest resolution solar imaging of any telescope, and the 10.4 m Gran Telescopio Canarias (currently under construction). It is expected this telescope will be operative for the astronomical community at the beginning of 2009.

Roque de los Muchachos Observatory is one of the main candidates to host the European Extremely Large Telescope; a 42m telescope leaded by the European Southern Observatory

[edit] History

The observatory started with the Isaac Newton Telescope, which was moved to La Palma from the Royal Greenwich Observatory site at Herstmonceux Castle in Sussex, England in 1979. The move was beset with difficulties, and it is widely recognized that it would have been cheaper to have built a new telescope rather than moving an existing one.

Several of the helicopter pads built for the inauguration ceremony can be seen under the HEGRA array

Telescopes at the observatory at sunset, including the NOT and the ING

The observatory was initiated in Santa Cruz de La Palma by representatives from Spain, Sweden, Denmark and the United Kingdom. Other countries became involved later, including Germany, Italy, Norway, The Netherlands, Finland, Iceland and the USA.

The observatory was officially inaugurated on the 29th June 1985 by the Spanish royal family and six European heads of state. Seven helicopter pads were built at the observatory to allow the dignitaries to arrive in comfort.

A fire on the mountainside in 1997 damaged one of the gamma-ray telescopes, but the fire in September 2005 did no serious damage to buildings or telescopes.