Cloudcroft Observatory

With Cloudcroft an observatory near the town of Cloudcroft is referred to in the U.S. state of New Mexico. Built around 1962 the observatory has since been operated by different organizations each other names with different telescopes and goals.

History

Cloudcroft Electro- Optical Research Facility

Was founded the observatory, which was also called Cloudcroft Observatory, 1962 used by the U.S. Air Force and as a result operated by the Air Force Avionics Laboratory ( AFAL ) and was until 1982. The so-called Electro- Optical Surveillance Telescope ( EOST ) was operated from 1964, a 1.22 m Newtonian telescope with a three-axis, azimuth -elevation - azimuth mount. AFAL led there a Space Object Identification (SOI ) to 1975. After the establishment of the USAF Space and Missile Systems Organization ( SAMSO ) was passed, primarily to investigate time variations of planetary objects and stars and stayed until 1982. In the late 1980s, the telescope was moved to the Table Mountain Observatory of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

NASA Orbital Debris Observatory

From 1995 to 2002, NASA took over the observatory and equipped it with a 3 m liquid mirror telescope, in order to search for space debris. This was accompanied by a renaming to NASA Orbital Debris Observatory. With a series of narrow band filters also galaxies were examined with moderate cosmological redshift in the field of view of the telescope. Parts of the telescope were later reused in the Large Zenith Telescope. The search for space debris is otherwise continued by NASA, for example, with the 1.3 m- MCAT on the Kwajalein Atoll and the Curtis Schmidt telescope at Cerro Tololo Inter- American Observatory.

The observatory had during the period 1997-2001 and a 32 - cm Schmidt camera, which was also used for observation of space debris.

Cloudcroft Facility

After the establishment of the privately owned Tzec Maun Foundation was incorporated. In the main building, a 1 - m Ritchey -Chrétien telescope is housed.