The Mercator Telescope is a 1.2
m telescope
A telescope is a device used to observe distant objects by their emission, absorption, or reflection of electromagnetic radiation. Originally meaning only an optical instrument using lenses, curved mirrors, or a combination of both to obse ...
at the
Observatorio del Roque de Los Muchachos on
La Palma. It is operated by the
Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (Leuven University), Belgium, in collaboration with the Observatory of the
University of Geneva
The University of Geneva (French: ''Université de Genève'') is a public research university located in Geneva, Switzerland. It was founded in 1559 by John Calvin as a theological seminary. It remained focused on theology until the 17th centur ...
and named after
Gerard Mercator
Gerardus Mercator (; 5 March 1512 – 2 December 1594) was a 16th-century geographer, cosmographer and cartographer from the County of Flanders. He is most renowned for creating the 1569 world map based on a new projection which represente ...
, famous cartographer.
The telescope was completed in the year 2000 for an exoplanet research program.
Features
The telescope contains two different measuring devices. First of all, there is the ''MeropeII''
CCD camera. This camera has a size of 2k by 6k
pixel
In digital imaging, a pixel (abbreviated px), pel, or picture element is the smallest addressable element in a raster image, or the smallest point in an all points addressable display device.
In most digital display devices, pixels are the s ...
s Frame Transfer detector originally designed for ESA's canceled
Eddington Eddington or Edington may refer to:
People
* Eddington Varmah, Liberian politician
* Eddington (surname), people with the surname
Places
Australia
* Eddington, Victoria
United Kingdom
* Eddington, Berkshire
* Eddington, Cambridge
* E ...
space mission. The filters used together with this camera are according to the so-called ''geneva photometric system''. The second instrument on the Mercator Telescope is the ''HERMES'' echelle
spectrograph. It covers a wavelength range between 380 and 875
nm with a spectral resolution of R∼85000.
The ''P7''
photometer
A photometer is an instrument that measures the strength of electromagnetic radiation in the range from ultraviolet to infrared and including the visible spectrum. Most photometers convert light into an electric current using a photoresistor, ...
was active from May 2001 until July 2008. The photometer measured in the 7 band Geneva photometric system. It measured the star in one channel and the sky in another so that the sky can be subtracted. The filter wheel is turning at a rate of 4
Hz, changing between the filters of the photometric system.
The Swiss
Euler 1.2m Telescope
Leonhard Euler Telescope, or the Swiss EULER Telescope, is a national, fully automatic reflecting telescope, built and operated by the Geneva Observatory. It is located at an altitude of at ESO's La Silla Observatory site in the Chilean Nor ...
and the Mercator Telescope were part of the
Southern Sky extrasolar Planet search Programme
Southern may refer to:
Businesses
* China Southern Airlines, airline based in Guangzhou, China
* Southern Airways, defunct US airline
* Southern Air, air cargo transportation company based in Norwalk, Connecticut, US
* Southern Airways Express, M ...
which has discovered numerous extrasolar planets.
The Hermes spectrograph was used to monitor the Star
Delta Cephei in the 2010s.
The data seemed to suggest a previously unknown stellar companion.
[ The Hermes spectrograph for Mercator was in development from at least 2004, and is a "high-resolution fiber-fed echelle spectrograph" type of design.]Eddington mission The Eddington mission was a European Space Agency (ESA) project that planned to search for Earth-like planets, but was cancelled in 2003. It was named for the noted astronomer Arthur Eddington, who formulated much of the modern theory of stellar atm ...
, which was however cancelled and thus not sent into space at that time.
See also
* Gran Telescopio Canarias
The Gran Telescopio Canarias (GranTeCan or GTC) is a reflecting telescope located at the Roque de los Muchachos Observatory on the island of La Palma, in the Canaries, Spain. It is the world's largest single-aperture optical telescope.
Con ...
* Nordic Optical Telescope
* Swedish Solar Telescope
* List of largest optical telescopes in the 20th century
References
External links
Mercator Telescope homepage
The HERMES project page
* {{cite web, title=Mercator Telescope, url=http://www.deepskyvideos.com/videos/telescopes/mercator_telescope.html, work=Deep Sky Videos, publisher= Brady Haran
Optical telescopes
Astronomical observatories in La Palma