The New Greek Telescope project of the
National Observatory of Athens
The National Observatory of Athens (NOA; el, Εθνικό Αστεροσκοπείο Αθηνών) is a research institute in Athens, Greece. Founded in 1842, it is the oldest research foundation in Greece, as it was the first scientific resea ...
(NOA) was funded by the
European Commission
The European Commission (EC) is the executive of the European Union (EU). It operates as a cabinet government, with 27 members of the Commission (informally known as "Commissioners") headed by a President. It includes an administrative body o ...
and the General Secretariat for Research and Technology of the Hellenic Ministry of Development. The telescope had its first light test in 2005, and became the largest telescope in
Greece
Greece,, or , romanized: ', officially the Hellenic Republic, is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the southern tip of the Balkans, and is located at the crossroads of Europe, Asia, and Africa. Greece shares land borders with ...
when it became fully operational at the
Chelmos Observatory site in 2007. The telescope is operated by the
Institute for Astronomy, Astrophysics, Space Applications and Remote Sensing (IAASARS) of the NOA. It is part of the OPTICON consortium of medium size telescopes.
The telescope, built by
Carl Zeiss AG
Carl Zeiss AG (), branded as ZEISS, is a German manufacturer of optical systems and optoelectronics, founded in Jena, Germany in 1846 by optician Carl Zeiss. Together with Ernst Abbe (joined 1866) and Otto Schott (joined 1884) he laid the f ...
, has a
Ritchey-Chrétien configuration with a primary mirror with a diameter of 2.3 m. At the main
f/8 Cassegrain focus, the corrected field of view is approximately one degree, with a plate scale of 1.17 arcsec/mm.
It has an
Altazimuth mount
An altazimuth mount or alt-azimuth mount is a simple two-axis mount for supporting and rotating an instrument about two perpendicular axes – one vertical and the other horizontal. Rotation about the vertical axis varies the azimuth (compass bea ...
. The telescope is housed in a tower 35 meters away from the control building, so that heat and vibrations from human activity, automobiles and computers will not affect the telescope's performance. The telescope was designed to support remote observing.
Observations with the Aristarchos telescope have provided a measurement of the distance to the planetary nebula
KjPn 8.
NASA ADS
Bibliographic record
See also
*List of largest optical reflecting telescopes
A ''list'' is any set of items in a row. List or lists may also refer to:
People
* List (surname)
Organizations
* List College, an undergraduate division of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America
* SC Germania List, German rugby union ...
References
External links
*
OPTICON Network
Optical telescopes
Astronomy in Greece
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