Magdalena Ridge Observatory

The Magdalena Ridge Observatory, Eng. Magdalena Ridge Observatory (MRO ) is an observatory in Socorro County, New Mexico about 32 kilometers west of the town of Socorro in the Magdalena Mountains, near the summit of South Baldy at an altitude of 3180m.

The observatory houses a 2.4 meter reflecting telescope whose primary mirror is identical to that of the Hubble Space Telescope. It was put into operation in 2006 ( First Light ) and is since 2008 in regular operation. It is characterized by a high mobility of 10 ° per second, and is mainly used by NASA to monitor near-Earth objects. It was involved in the 2007 WD5 tracking.

Furthermore, the observatory houses the Magdalena Ridge Observatory under construction interferometer. It is an astronomical interferometer, which consists of ten telescopes with a diameter of 1.4 meters and a base length, the maximum distance between two telescopes of 400 meters has. First diffraction patterns are expected in 2015.