INSTITUTE OF
ASTRONOMY

Institute of Astronomy

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Instrumentation Projects

Ground based telescopes and instruments

The Mercator Telescope
The Mercator Telescope is a 1.2 meter telescope with an alt-azimuth mounting located on the Roque de los Muchachos observatory (La Palma, Spain). The telescope is operated by the staff of the Instituut voor Sterrenkunde.

HERMES Spectrograph
HERMES is the acronym for High Efficiency and Resolution Mercator Echelle Spectrograph. The design, construction, and integration of the spectrograph at the Mercator telescope was lead by the Instituut voor Sterrenkunde.

MAIA Camera
MAIA is a 3-channel optical imager that is currently being built at the Instituut voor Sterrenkunde. MAIA will offer simultaneous observations in three colour bands over a wide field of view and very short cycle times.

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ELT-METIS
METIS is the proposed mid-infrared imager and spectrograph for the European ELT, Europe's next-generation ground-based telescope for optical and infrared (IR) wavelengths

Space instruments

	Herschel Space Observatory Herschel is a space telescope observing at far-infrared wavelengths. Our institute is involved in the consortium building and operating the PACS instrument. Read More >>
	Gaia Gaia is an ambitious ESA cornerstone mission that will be launched in 2013. The mission will measure more than 1 billion stars with unprecedented precision. Read More >>
	James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) The James Webb Space Telescope (also called JWST) is a large, infrared-optimized space telescope planned to be the successor of the Hubble Space Telescope. The institute is involved in testing the instrument. Read More >>
	PLATO PLATO is a next generation ESA space mission concept forseen for launch in 2018 with the goal to perform ultra-high precision photometry of 100,000s of stars to detect planetary transits and to perform asteroseismology. Read More >>
	SPICA - SAFARI SPICA is a next-generation infrared astronomy mission, lead by JAXA (Japan) with important contributions foreseen from Europe. With its cold and large telescope, SPICA will achieve superior sensitivity in the infrared. Read More >>
	COROT COROT is a French-led European space mission of ultra-high precision photometry dedicated to Stellar Seismology and Planet Finding launched in 2006. We were partly responsible for the scientific calibration and science exploitation of the mission Read More >>
	Infrared Space Observatory (ISO) The Institute of Astronomy has participated in the realisation of the Short-Wavelength Spectrometer (SWS) aboard the Infrared Space Observatory (ISO). This involvement concerned the calibration of the instrument and the development of data reduction software. Read More >>