0.9m time at $600/night ..... 1.5m time at $200/hour
Observing time is available through the Small and
Moderate Aperture Research Telescope System Consortium (
SMARTS ) for you or your institution on the
CTIO/SMARTS 1.5m and 0.9m telescopes. Partnerships can be with
institutions, individuals, or groups of individuals. We also welcome
international partners. Time can be purchased for as little as a few
thousand dollars, up to major partners contributing $50K or more.
The 0.9m is currently equipped with a optical imaging
camera with a field of 16.8 arcmin and pixels 0.401 arcsec on the sky.
See
SMARTS Overview (Subasavage et al. 2010)
for details on the 0.9m telescope and imaging
camera. Time is scheduled for user observing runs (you travel to the
telescope in Chile) that span a few nights or weeks. The cost is
$600/night and scheduling is quite flexible. Time on the 0.9m is
particularly useful for graduate and undergraduate training and
observing experience. Please contact Todd Henry at thenry[at
symbol]astro[dot]gsu[dot]edu for 0.9m programs.
The 1.5m is currently equipped with the CHIRON high
resolution spectrograph, which is described
at
SMARTS 1.5m . Time is scheduled via service
observing runs (SMARTS staff do the observing for you) over one or
more semesters for time-domain science with highly flexible cadences.
The cost is $200/hour. Please contact Todd Henry at thenry[at
symbol]astro[dot]gsu[dot]edu for 1.5m programs.
For safety reasons, it is highly recommended that
observers traveling overnight from the U.S. to Santiago, then to La
Serena, spend at least 1 night in La Serena before taking the 2-hour
trip up the mountain to the telescopes the next day. SMARTS requires
that visiting observers spend 1-2 nights at any of the telescopes to
learn how to properly open and close the facility and to carry out the
protocols needed to make observations throughout the night.
0.9m SMARTS Observing Schedule
0.9m Observers --- Key Information
0.9m Details
1.5m SMARTS Observing Schedule
1.5m Observers --- Key Information
1.5m Details
1.5m SMARTS Results
SMARTS General Information
CTIO General Information
0.9m SMARTS Observing Schedules --- Past
The photo at the top of the page was taken by
Matthias Dietrich on the night of 24 April 2003 using a Canon camera
with 15 mm lens (focal ratio 2.8), exposing for 90 minutes on Fuji ASA
200 film. Three SMARTS telescopes can be seen: the CTIO 0.9m is on the
right, the Yale 1.0m is on the left, and the CTIO 1.5m is second from
the right. The fuzzy reddish region in the upper left and center is
the light from the Milky Way Galaxy.
