Canada–France–Hawaii Telescope

The Canada -France - Hawaii Telescope ( CFHT ) is a jointly organized by the National Research Council of Canada, the Centre national de la recherche scientifique (CNRS ) in France and the University of Hawaii -powered large telescope with a primary mirror diameter of 3.58 m, which is near the summit of the extinct volcano Mauna Kea is located at an altitude of 4204 m in Hawaii. The telescope is used in scientific operation since 1979.

The CFHT is like the famous Mount Palomar telescope has a classic primary focus / Cassegrain telescope with a parabolic primary mirror polished. The recording equipment is a large field camera with a high resolution CCD mosaic of 36 individual CCDs with 2048 x 4612 pixels, a Infrarotdektor and an infrared wide-field camera, a system for adaptive optics and various spectrograph.

Previous research focus of the CFHT are / were:

• A sky survey (Canada -France - Hawaii Telescope Legacy Survey, CFHTLS ), which is created in an observation campaign over 5 years with a total of 450 observation nights.
• Exploration extremely distant galaxies and the large-scale structure of the universe.
• Exploration of small asteroids and moons of the solar system, such as new moons of Jupiter and the two- part bodies Kuiper belt object 1998 WW31.