Limited resources prevent VATT from being a visitor observatory, but collaborations are welcomed by VORG, especially when suitable instrumentation is provided for shared use at VATT. The VATT's mirror is unusually 'fast' at f/1, which means that its focal distance is equal to its diameter. English: @VaticanObserv Italian: @SpecolaVaticana Spanish: @ObserVaticano French: @ObsDuVatican Polish: @WatykanskieObsA, Copyright © 2019 VATT - The Vatican Advanced Technology Telescope. Public tours are conducted by advance reservation, beginning about mid-May through October, weather permitting. The government of the Vatican City State 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. Both observing time and responsibility for VATT are shared with the University of Arizona on a 75% VORG, 25% Arizona basis. It achieved its first light in 1993. The Eastern Arizona College's Discovery Park Campus is the official tour agent for the Mount Graham International Observatory. The telescope is dubbed LUCIFER 1, and provides a powerful tool to gain spectacular insights into the … his was manufactured at the University of Arizona Mirror Laboratory, and it pioneered both the spin-casting techniques and the stressed-lap polishing techniques of that Laboratory which are being used for telescope mirrors up to 8.4-m in … In addition, the skies above Mount Graham are among the most clear, steady, and dark in the continental North America. The VATT telescope has an Alt/Az mount and uses a 1.8-m f/1.0 honeycombed construction, borosilicate primary mirror developed by the University of Arizona Mirror Lab. It also means that a small dome can be used and so the distortions in an image produced by air surrounding a telescope can be minimized. "VATT" redirects here. The 0.38-m f/0.9 Zerodur concave secondary mirror was manufacted by the Space Optics Research Laboratory (Chelmsford, MA). The Vatican Observatory Research Group (VORG) operates the 1.8m Alice P. Lennon Telescope with its Thomas J. Bannan Astrophysics Facility, known together as the Vatican Advanced Technology Telescope. 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. All rights reserved.Adrian Design, The Vatican Advanced Technology Telescope, Optical System : aplanatic Gregorian, f/9, Instructions for use of the VATT Spectrograph. Tours of Mount Graham International Observatory, including the VATT, are run on Saturdays from mid-May to mid-October (weather-permitting) from Discovery Park out of Safford. Its heart is a 1.8-m f/1.0 honeycombed construction, borosilicate primary mirror. This isolation is achieved by using the section between the dome and the main facility as a thermal barrier and by exhausting air from this section and from the dome out from the north and mainly downwind side of the building. It features direct drive motors on the two axes, leading to a very compact and rigid mount. The Vatican Observatory Research Group (VORG) operates the 1.8m Alice P. Lennon Telescope with its Thomas J. Bannan Astrophysics Facility, known together as the Vatican Advanced Technology Telescope (VATT), at the Mount Graham International Observatory (MGIO) in southeastern Arizona. Among the results from this telescope have been the discovery of MACHOs in the Andromeda Galaxy; 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 objects, most of them fainter than magnitude 21. A little more than a decade later, the Large Binocular Telescope (LBT) opened on Mount Graham. The Vatican Advanced Technology Telescope ( VATT) truly lives up to its name. 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. Its secondary mirror is a 0.38-m f/0.9 Zerodur manufacted by the Space Optics Research Laboratory 1) . With twin 8.4-meter mirrors, the LBT is one of the largest optical telescopes in the world. Graham in south eastern Arizona, and is part of the Mount Graham International Observatory. Its mount allows control of its focus and positioning to 0.1 microns, an accuracy needed for such a fast optical system. The 1.8 meter 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 and infrared situated on Mount Graham in southeast Arizona, United States. The telescope mount is of altitude-azimuth design and was manufactured by L&F Industries (Huntington Park, CA). Vatican astronomers used some of the facilities of Steward Observatory, but in 1993 the 1.8-meter Vatican Advanced Technology Telescope (VATT) opened on Mount Graham in southeast Arizona. Benefactors to the Vatican Observatory Foundation continue to support the operating costs of the VATT. The same year, Steward Observatory’s Heinrich Hertz Submillimeter Telescope (SMT) also opened on Mount Graham. The primary mirror was manufactured at The University of Arizona's 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, and the two 8.4 meter mirrors of the Large Binocular Telescope. The Vatican Observatory Research Group (VORG) operates the 1.8m Alice P. Lennon Telescope with its Thomas J. Bannan Astrophysics Facility, known together as the Vatican Advanced Technology Telescope ( VATT ), at the Mount Graham International Observatory ( MGIO) in southeastern Arizona where sky conditions are among the best in the world and certainly the Continental United … Welcome to VATT. For instance, a three-year agreement was made by the Vatican Observatory with the University of Notre Dame, Indiana (UND), for an Association which provided the UND Department of Physics with 20 nights on VATT per annum. Seeing of better than one arc-second even without adaptive optics can be achieved on a regular basis. The 1.8 meter 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 and infrared situated on Mount Graham in southeast Arizona, United States. The building in which the telescope is housed is designed to isolate thermally the ambient temperature in the dome from the heated observing room and living quarters. The primary mirror is so deeply-dished that the focus of the telescope is only as far above the mirror as the mirror is wide, thus allowing a structure that is about three times as compact as the previous generation of telescope designs. For the Finnish government agency, see, The Vatican Advanced Technology Telescope (VATT), Location of Vatican Advanced Technology Telescope, Catholic Church and science#Vatican Observatory, Eastern Arizona College's Discovery Park Campus, Santa Maria della Pietà in Camposanto dei Teutonici, Santi Martino e Sebastiano degli Svizzeri, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Vatican_Advanced_Technology_Telescope&oldid=961732673, Buildings and structures in Graham County, Arizona, Articles using Infobox telescope using locally defined parameters, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License, This page was last edited on 10 June 2020, at 03:20. The Vatican Observatory Research Group (VORG) operates the 1.8m Alice P. Lennon Telescope with its Thomas J. Bannan Astrophysics Facility, known together as the Vatican Advanced Technology Telescope (VATT), at the Mount Graham International Observatory (MGIO) in southeastern Arizona where sky conditions are among the best in the world and certainly the Continental United States. 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. Its heart is a 1.8-m f/1.0 honeycombed construction, borosilicate primary mirror. The L… It achieved its first light in 1993. The Vatican Advanced Technology Telescope (VATT) truly lives up to its name. Both observing time and responsibility for VATT are shared with the University of Arizona on a 75% The Vatican …