Anglo-Australian Telescope
|
|
The Anglo-Australian Telescope (AAT) is a 3.9m equatorially mounted telescope located at Anglo-Australian Observatory (part of the Siding Spring Observatory complex, Australia) at an altitude of a little over 1100m. Jointly funded by the United Kingdom and Australia it is used for a number of instruments, perhaps most notably the Two Degree Field facility, or 2dF.
The telescope was commissioned in 1974 with a view to allowing high quality observations of the sky from the southern hemisphere, as in the 1970s most major telescopes were located in the north.
The equatorial mount it uses is somewhat unusual, as more recent large telescopes tend to use an altazimuth mount.
External links
- AAT homepage (http://www.aao.gov.au/about/aat.html)