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The Giant Magellan Telescope Organization (GMTO) Corporation is pleased to announce that the University of Chicago has joined the partnership that will construct the 25-meter Giant Magellan Telescope (GMT), a state of the art astronomical observatory. The GMT will be used to address fundamental questions in cosmology and astrophysics and to explore worlds around other stars.[more]
Leonard Searle, Astronomer and Director Emeritus of Carnegie Observatories, died at his home on July 2, 2010, in Pasadena, CA, in the midst of a busy retirement that followed a long, distinguished scientific career.[more]
Giant Magellan
Telescope
The Giant
Magellan Telescope (GMT)—the product of more than a century
of
astronomical research and telescope-building by some of the
world’s
leading research institutions—will open a new window on the
universe
for the 21st century. Scheduled for completion around 2019, the GMT
will have the resolving power of a 24.5-meter (80 foot) primary
mirror—far larger than any other telescope ever built. It
will answer
many of the questions at the forefront of astrophysics today and will
pose new and unanticipated riddles for future generations of
astronomers.
Magellan Telescopes
The twin 6.5-meter Magellan
telescopes are widely
considered to be the best natural imaging telescopes in the world. They
were built and continue to be operated by a consortium consisting of
the Carnegie Institution of Washington, Harvard University, MIT, the
University of Michigan, and the University of Arizona. The telescopes
are located at Carnegie's Las Campanas Observatory, high in the
southern reaches of Chile's Atacama Desert. First light for the Walter
Baade telescope occurred on September 15, 2000. The Landon Clay
telescope started science operations on September 7, 2002.
There are several instruments operating on, or under construction
for, the Las Campanas telescopes.
Du Pont and Swope
Telescopes
The
Observatories currently operate
the Irénée du Pont
2.5-meter and Henrietta Swope 1.0-meter telescopes at Las
Campanas, Chile. Telescope time is available to the Observatories'
scientific staff and visiting investigators.
