1B23 – Ground-based Observatories

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This list is intended to cover all major observatories (not individual telescopes), together with some smaller ones of particular interest to the UK community. More extensive (but rather indiscriminate) lists of astronomical telescopes are maintained by AstroWeb, and at NRAO Charlottesville, while a list of the world's largest optical telescopes is available at `BigEyes' .

See also the 1B23 list of space missions.

o AAO: the Anglo-Australian Observatory
The Anglo Australian Observatory (AAO) operates two optical telescopes at Siding Spring Observatory: the 3.9-m Anglo-Australian Telescope (AAT) and the 1.2-m UK Schmidt Telescope (UKST). UK Mirror
o ALMA
The Atacama Large Millimeter Array
o Armagh Observatory
"A modern astronomical research institute with a rich heritage"
o ATNF
The Australia Telescope National Facility (radio telescopes).
o Big Bear Solar Observatory
Includes "live" solar images in H-α
o BOOMERAnG
Balloon Observations Of Millimetric Extragalactic Radiation And Geophysics (a balloon-borne CMB experiment)
o Calar Alto
The German-Spanish Astronomical Centre at Calar Alto is located in the Sierra de Los Filabres, southern Spain.
o Cambridge (UK) Astronomy
 
o CELT: the California Extremely Large Telescope
A collaboration of the University of California and the California Institute of Technology to build a 30-m optical/IR telescope.
o Cerro Tololo
Part of the National Optical Astronomical Observatories
o CFHT: the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope
The home page of the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope, a 3.6-m optical/IR telescope located on Mauna Kea on the island of Hawaii.
o CHARA
The Center for High Angular Resolution Astronomy.
o CSO: Caltech Submillimeter Observatory
A 10.4-m millimetre telescope located on Mauna Kea on the island of Hawaii.
o DAO: the Dominion Astrophysical Observatory
The DAO is operated by the Canadian National Research Council through the Herzberg Institute of Astrophysics.
o DDO: the David Dunlap Observatory
DDO, associated with the University of Toronto, is the site of the largest optical telescope in Canada
o ESO: the European Southern Observatory
ESO maintains optical/IR telescopes in Chile, at La Silla and at Paranal, home of the Very Large Telescope (VLT)
o The Gemini 8-Metre Telescopes Project
Twin telescopes in the Northern and Southern hemispheres (UK mirror). The UK Gemini Support Group is located at Oxford University
o GBT: the Robert C. Byrd Green Bank Telescope
Part of the National Radio Astronomical Observatories (NRAO)
o HESS: the High Energy Stereoscopic System
A next-generation system of imaging atmospheric Cherenkov telescopes for the investigation of cosmic gamma rays in the 100-GeV energy range.
o ING La Palma Information
Details of the Isaac Newton Group of Telescopes, including the William Herschel Telescope (WHT), Isaac Newton Telescope (INT) and Jacobus Kapteyn Telescope (JKT), on the island of La Palma in the Canary Islands (UK mirror).
o IRAM
Institut de Radio Astronomie Millimetrique, is an international (Frence, Germany & Spain) institute for research in millimetre astronomy.
o IRTF
The InfraRed Telescope Facility is a 3-metre telescope optimized for IR observations operated for NASA by the University of Hawaii Institute for Astronomy.
o JACH: the Joint Astronomy Centre, Hawaii
The Joint Astronomy Centre provides services and support visiting and staff astronomers using the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope and the United Kingdom Infrared Telescope (UK mirror).
o JCMT: the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope
The 15m-diameter JCMT is the largest facility in the world designed specifically to operate in the sub-mm part of the spectrum, located on Mauna Kea, Hawaii.
o Jodrell Bank
Jodrell Bank is the home of MERLIN and the Lovell Telescope.
o Keck
Currently the largest-aperture optical telescopes in the world, the twin Keck telescopes, operated by the University of California, are located on Mauna Kea, Hawaii.
o Kitt Peak
Part of the National Optical Astronomical Observatories
o Las Campanas
The Observatories of the Carnegie Institution of Washington
o La Silla
Home of ESO's first Chilean observatory.
o Lick
The world's first permanently occupied mountaintop observatory
o Magellan Project
Two 6.5-m telescopes at Las Campanas
o McDonald
McDonald Observatory, of the University of Texas at Austin, including the Hobby-Eberley Telescope.
o MAXIMA
The Millimeter Anisotropy eXperiment IMaging Array
o MERLIN
MERLIN, operated at Jodrell Bank, is the Multi-Element Radio Linked Interferometer Network, an array of Radio Telescopes distributed across Great Britain (see also VLBI).
o MSSSO: the Mount Stromlo and Siding Spring Observatories
Includes the 74-inch telescope at Mt Stromlo (Canberra) and the 2.3-m telescope at Siding Spring (see also AAO entry). Part of the Research School of Astronomy and Astrophysics at the Australian National University.
o MMT
Orginally the 'Multi-Mirror Telescope', now replaced with a 6.5-m monolith
o NOAO
National Optical Astronomical Observatories; facilities include Kitt Peak (Arizona) and Cerro Tololo (Chile).
o NRAO
National Radio Astronomical Observatories; facilities include the Very Large Array (VLA), the Green Bank Telescope (GBT), and the Very Long Baseline Array (VLBA).
o OVRO
Owens Valley Radio Observatory
o OGLE
The Optical Gravitational Lensing Experiment
o OWL
According to taste, the OverWhelmingly Large telescope project, or the Observatory at World Level. A European project to develop a 100-m-scale optical/IR telescope.
o Palomar Observatory
Home of the historic 200-inch Hale telescope
o Paranal
Home of the Very Large Telescope, and ESO's second Chilean observatory
o Royal Observatory Greenwich
Astronomy information service, astronomy news, night sky...
o SAAO
The home page of the South African Astronomical Observatory, which includes the South African Large Telescope (SALT; UK SALT Consortium home page)
o Siding Spring Observatory (SSO)
ANU site, includes the 40-inch and 2.3-m telescopes.
o SOFIA
A joint NASA-DLR observatory which will be mounted in a modified Boeing 747-SP to observe at infrared wavelengths above the bulk of the Earth's atmosphere (SOFIA stands for Stratospheric Observatory for IR astronomy).
o Square Kilometre Array (SKA)
Next-generation radio astronomy
o Steward Observatory
University of Arizona
o Subaru
The 8.2-m Subaru telescope, on Mauna Kea, Hawaii, is operated by the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan (NAOJ).
o UKIRT
Details of the 3.8-m United Kingdom Infrared Telescope on Mauna Kea in Hawaii.
o USNO
The US Naval Observatory — specializing in time keeping and navigation
o VISTA
The "Visible and Infrared Telescope for Astronomy"
o VLA: the Very Large Array
Part of the National Radio Astronomical Observatories (NRAO)
o VLBA: the Very Long Baseline Array
Part of the National Radio Astronomical Observatories (NRAO)
o VLT: the Very Large Telescope
Four 8.2-m telescopes (with auxiliary outliers) at Paranal, part of the European Southern Observatory.
o Yerkes
Home of the world's largest refracting telescope.

Please notify dead links, or suggestions for additional links, to idh(@)star.ucl.ac.uk

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