MPG/ESO telescope

MPG/ESO telescope

Part of	La Silla Observatory
Location(s)	Atacama Desert
Coordinates	29°15′28″S 70°44′12″W / 29.25786°S 70.736648°W / -29.25786; -70.736648
Organization	European Southern Observatory Max Planck Institute for Astronomy
Altitude	2,375 m (7,792 ft)
First light	22 June 1983
Telescope style	Ritchey–Chrétien telescope
Diameter	2.20 m (7 ft 3 in)
Secondary diameter	0.84 m (2 ft 9 in)
Angular resolution	0.3 arcsecond
Collecting area	3.8 m2 (41 sq ft)
Focal length	17.6 m (57 ft 9 in)
Mounting	equatorial mount
Website	www.eso.org/public/teles-instr/lasilla/mpg22/
Location of MPG/ESO telescope
Related media on Commons
[edit on Wikidata]

The MPG/ESO telescope is a 2.2-metre f/8.0^[1] (17.6-metre^[2]) ground-based telescope at the European Southern Observatory (ESO) in La Silla, Chile. It was built by Zeiss and has been operating since 1984. It was on indefinite loan to the European Southern Observatory from the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy (MPIA). In October 2013 it was returned to the MPIA. Telescope time is shared between MPIA and MPE observing programmes, while the operation and maintenance of the telescope are ESO's responsibility.^[3]

The telescope hosts three instruments: the 67-million-pixel Wide Field Imager^[4] with a field of view able to cover the full Moon; GROND, the Gamma-Ray Burst Optical/Near-Infrared Detector, which chases the afterglows of the most powerful explosions in the universe, known as gamma-ray bursts; and the high-resolution spectrograph, FEROS, used to make detailed studies of stars.^[5]

In November 2010 it was used to observe HIP 13044, and marked what was thought to be the first time a planetary system in a stellar stream of extragalactic origin had been detected.^[6] However, subsequent analysis in 2014 found no evidence for a planet orbiting the star.^[7]

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  Messier 7^[8] imaged by the 67-megapixel Wide Field Imager (WFI)^[4]
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  WFI captures the star-forming dark cloud Lupus 3
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  The Orion Nebula (Messier 42) captured using the WFI camera
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  The Jewel Box NGC 4755 taken with the WFI
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  The Lagoon Nebula taken with Wide Field Imager
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  One-square-degree image of the Tarantula Nebula using the WFI
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  The ESO 2.2-metre telescope in its enclosure in 1996
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  Aerial view of the La Silla Observatory, home of the MPG/ESO telescope
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  MPG/ESO telescope's silver dome is seen in the foreground^[9]
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  MPG/ESO telescope images NGC 6388^[10]

• Lists of telescopes

• Media related to MPG/ESO 2.2-m Telescope at Wikimedia Commons