The Alice P. Lennon Telescope and its Thomas J. Bannan Astrophysics Facility, known together as the Vatican Advanced Technology Telescope (VATT), is a Gregorian telescope observing in the

optical Optics is the branch of physics that studies the behaviour and properties of light, including its interactions with matter and the construction of instruments that use or detect it. Optics usually describes the behaviour of visible, ultravio ...

and

infrared Infrared (IR; sometimes called infrared light) is electromagnetic radiation (EMR) with wavelengths longer than that of visible light but shorter than microwaves. The infrared spectral band begins with the waves that are just longer than those ...

situated on Mount Graham in southeast

Arizona Arizona is a U.S. state, state in the Southwestern United States, Southwestern region of the United States, sharing the Four Corners region of the western United States with Colorado, New Mexico, and Utah. It also borders Nevada to the nort ...

, United States. Measuring primary diameter, the telescope achieved its first light in 1993. VATT is part of the Mount Graham International Observatory and is operated by the Vatican Observatory, one of the oldest astronomical research institutions in the world, in partnership with The University of Arizona.

Design

The heart of the telescope is an f/1.0 honeycombed-construction

borosilicate Borosilicate glass is a type of glass with silicon dioxide, silica and boron trioxide as the main glass-forming constituents. Borosilicate glasses are known for having very low coefficient of thermal expansion, coefficients of thermal expansion ( ...

primary mirror. The VATT's mirror is unusually "fast" at f/1, which means that its focal distance is equal to its diameter. Because it has such a short focal length, a Gregorian design could be employed which uses a concave secondary mirror at a point beyond the primary focus; this allows unusually sharp focusing across the field of view. The unusual optical design and novel mirror fabrication techniques mean that both the primary and secondary mirrors are among the most exact surfaces ever made for a ground-based telescope. In addition, the skies above Mount Graham are among the most clear, steady, and dark in the continental North America. Seeing of better than one arc-second even without

adaptive optics Adaptive optics (AO) is a technique of precisely deforming a mirror in order to compensate for light distortion. It is used in Astronomy, astronomical telescopes and laser communication systems to remove the effects of Astronomical seeing, atmo ...

can be achieved on a regular basis.

Construction

The primary mirror was manufactured at The University of Arizona'
Steward Observatory Mirror Laboratory
which pioneered both the spin-casting and the stressed-lap polishing techniques which are being used for telescope mirrors that include the 6.5-meter-aperture MMT and

Magellan telescopes The Magellan Telescopes are a pair of optical telescopes located at Las Campanas Observatory in Chile. The two telescopes are named after the astronomer Walter Baade and the philanthropist Landon T. Clay. First light for the telescopes was on ...

, and the two 8.4-meter mirrors of the

Large Binocular Telescope The Large Binocular Telescope (LBT) is an optical telescope for astronomy located on Mount Graham, in the Pinaleno Mountains of southeastern Arizona, United States. It is a part of the Mount Graham International Observatory. When using both ...

Research

Given its excellent optical qualities, the telescope has been used primarily for imaging and photometric work, in which it regularly outperforms much larger telescopes located elsewhere. Among the results from this telescope have been the discovery of

MACHO Machismo (; ; ; ) is the sense of being " manly" and self-reliant, a concept associated with "a strong sense of masculine pride: an exaggerated masculinity". Machismo is a term originating in the early 1940s and 1950s and its use more wi ...

s in the

Andromeda Galaxy The Andromeda Galaxy is a barred spiral galaxy and is the nearest major galaxy to the Milky Way. It was originally named the Andromeda Nebula and is cataloged as Messier 31, M31, and NGC 224. Andromeda has a Galaxy#Isophotal diameter, D25 isop ...

; the validation of the Stromvil photometric filter system; evidence for how the shape and dimensions of galaxies have changed over the age of the universe; discovery of the first binary "Vesta chip" asteroid; and the characterization and classification by visible colors of some 100

trans-Neptunian object A trans-Neptunian object (TNO), also written transneptunian object, is any minor planet in the Solar System that orbits the Sun at a greater average distance than Neptune, which has an orbital semi-major axis of 30.1 astronomical units (AU). ...

s, most of them fainter than

magnitude Magnitude may refer to: Mathematics *Euclidean vector, a quantity defined by both its magnitude and its direction *Magnitude (mathematics), the relative size of an object *Norm (mathematics), a term for the size or length of a vector *Order of ...

21.

Funding

The government of the

Vatican City Vatican City, officially the Vatican City State (; ), is a Landlocked country, landlocked sovereign state and city-state; it is enclaved within Rome, the capital city of Italy and Bishop of Rome, seat of the Catholic Church. It became inde ...

supports the Vatican Observatory staff and regular research costs, but the cost to build and maintain the VATT itself has come from private donors: the major donors supporting the construction of the VATT were Fred and Alice P. Lennon and Thomas J. Bannan. Benefactors to th
Vatican Observatory Foundation
continue to support the operating costs of the VATT.

Other MGIO facilities

* Heinrich Hertz Submillimeter Telescope

References

External links

*
Eastern Arizona College's Discovery Park Campus
– Guided MGIO tours for the public {{Portal bar, Arizona, Astronomy, Stars, Spaceflight, Outer space, Solar System, Education, Science 1993 establishments in Arizona Astronomical observatories in Arizona Buildings and structures in Graham County, Arizona Catholic Church and science