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Jacobus Kapteyn Telescope

Coordinates: 28°45′40″N 17°52′41″W / 28.76117°N 17.87808°W / 28.76117; -17.87808
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Jacobus Kapteyn Telescope
The Jacobus Kapteyn Telescope in 2011 against a background of clouds as the sun rises
Alternative namesJKT Edit this at Wikidata
Named afterJacobus Kapteyn Edit this on Wikidata
Part ofSARA Edit this on Wikidata
Location(s)Roque de los Muchachos Observatory, Garafía, Province of Santa Cruz de Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain
Coordinates28°45′40″N 17°52′41″W / 28.76117°N 17.87808°W / 28.76117; -17.87808 Edit this at Wikidata
OrganizationSARA
Isaac Newton Group of Telescopes Edit this on Wikidata
Altitude2,369 m (7,772 ft) Edit this at Wikidata
First light23 March 1984 Edit this on Wikidata
Telescope styleastronomical observatory
reflecting telescope Edit this on Wikidata
Diameter1.0 m (3 ft 3 in) Edit this at Wikidata
Mass40 t (40,000 kg) Edit this at Wikidata
Mountingequatorial mount Edit this on Wikidata
Websitewww.ing.iac.es/PR/jkt_info/ Edit this at Wikidata
Jacobus Kapteyn Telescope is located in Canary Islands
Jacobus Kapteyn Telescope
Location of Jacobus Kapteyn Telescope
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The Jacobus Kapteyn Telescope or JKT is a 1-metre optical telescope named for the Dutch astronomer Jacobus Kapteyn (1851–1922) of the Isaac Newton Group of Telescopes at the Roque de los Muchachos Observatory on La Palma in the Canary Islands, Spain.

Funded jointly by the Netherlands and the United Kingdom with planning throughout the 1970s, construction of the JKT was completed in 1983 with the first photographic plate taken in March 1984. It can be used with two different focal points and different instruments, although by 1998 this was refined to one CCD imaging instrument. The telescope weighs nearly 40 metric tons in total.[1]

During construction in 1983, a Spanish container ship carrying parts of the telescope to La Palma was involved in an aircraft incident. In what is known as the Alraigo incident, a British Royal Navy Sea Harrier fighter jet made an emergency landing on the base plate for the telescope.[2]

Being superseded by more recent and larger telescopes, it was taken out of service as a common-user facility in August 2003.

Since 2014, the telescope is owned by the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC) and operated by the Southeastern Association for Research in Astronomy (SARA)[1] which has retrofitted JKT as a remotely operated observatory (under the internal designation SARA-RM), with the first new observations in this regime in April 2016.

Timeline

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Summary:[3]

  • 1984-2003 ING
  • 2003-2014 occasional project use
  • January 2014, IAC ownership
  • 2015, resumed operations as robotic telescope for SARA

Views

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Observation through the telescope, 1985.

See also

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References

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  1. ^ a b "The 1.0-m Jacobus Kapteyn Telescope (JKT)". Isaac Newton Group of Telescopes. 8 August 2014.
  2. ^ "Chronology of the Isaac Newton Group of Telescopes". Isaac Newton Group of Telescopes.
  3. ^ "Jacobus Kapteyn Telescope". www.ing.iac.es. Retrieved 2019-10-17.
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