Three of the telescopes at CTIO have been turned over to the SMARTS consortium, which operates them. They include the oldest and newest telescopes on the mountain; here is some idea of what they look like.
| The 0.9m, which started out life as the 36-inch, is a closed-tube Cassegrain design which has only had a visible-light imaging capability (with a 2K CCD). It has found a great deal of use as a stable photometric and astrometric instrument. The mounting is a single-arm equatorial. |
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| The 1.0m, formerly run by the YALO consortium, is a very similar design in optics and mounting. Here it sports the ANDICAM, which takes pictures simultaneously in the optical and infrared. For the first year or so (2003) it will not be run by the consortium; ANDICAM has been moved to the 1.3m (below). | |
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| The 1.5m is an open-tube Cassgrain, again on a single-arm equatorial mount. It has been operated with both an imaging and a spectroscopic detector, and the option of two secondaries giving f/13.5 and f/8. To simplify operations, only the spectrograph and the f/8 option are now available (although an IR imager is planned for the future). | |
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| The 1.3m, formerly the southern-hemisphere 2MASS survey telescope, is a much more modern design, using a split-ring equatorial mount and an optical design optimized for work in the infrared. It fits much more neatly into its dome. Here it is shown without the ANDICAM. | |
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