Vatican Advanced Technology Telescope

The Vatican Advanced Technology Telescope, shortly VATT, is a 1.8 meter by measuring Gregory telescope that is suitable for visible and infrared light. It is located on Mount Graham in southeastern Arizona in 3178 meters altitude and is part of the Mount Graham International Observatory and is part of the Vatican Observatory in partnership with the University of Arizona. The telescope was mainly financed by donations from Fred and Alice P. Lennon, and Thomas J. Bannan, completed it in 1993 ( First Light ).

The primary mirror of the telescope has a focal length equal to the diameter, so that in spite of the Gregory - arrangement results in a compact design. At the telescope the VATT CCD Imager - Vatt4k, a CCD image sensor with 4064 × 4064 pixels connected, records a sky region of 12.5 × 12.5 arcmin. Filters for interesting spectral ranges can be interposed.

The telescope is mainly used for astrophotography and photometry. Important results are:

  • The discovery of massive compact halo objects in the Andromeda galaxy,
  • The validation of the Stromvil photometric filter system
  • Evidence about the shape and size evolution of galaxies over the history of the universe,
  • Discovery of the first binary Vestoids,
  • Characterization and classification using the visible spectral distribution of over 100 transneptunischer objects like most darker than 21.
First light (astronomy) Minute of arc Large Binocular Telescope Heinrich Hertz Submillimeter Telescope
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