Jacobus Kapteyn Telescope

The Jacobus Kapteyn Telescope or JKT is a 1-metre optical telescope named for the Dutch astronomer Jacobus Kapteyn (1851-1922) of the Isaac Newton Group of Telescopes at the Roque de los Muchachos Observatory on La Palma in the Canary Islands, Spain.

Jacobus Kapteyn Telescope
The Jacobus Kapteyn Telescope in 2011 against a background of clouds as the sun rises
Named afterJacobus Kapteyn 
Part ofIsaac Newton Group of Telescopes
Roque de los Muchachos Observatory 
Location(s)La Palma, Atlantic Ocean
Coordinates28°45′41″N 17°52′41″W
OrganizationInstituto de Astrofísica de Canarias
Isaac Newton Group of Telescopes 
Altitude2,360 m (7,740 ft)
Built–1983 (–1983)
First lightMarch 1984 
Telescope styleoptical telescope
parabolic reflector
reflecting telescope 
Diameter1 m (3 ft 3 in)
Mountingequatorial mount 
Websitewww.ing.iac.es/PR/jkt_info
Location of Jacobus Kapteyn Telescope
Related media on Wikimedia Commons

Funded jointly by the Netherlands and the United Kingdom with planning throughout the 1970s, construction of the JKT was completed in 1983 with the first photographic plate taken in March 1984. It can be used with two different focal points and different instruments, although by 1998 this was refined to one CCD imaging instrument. The telescope weighs nearly 40 metric tons in total.[1]

Being superseded by more recent and larger telescopes, it was taken out of service as a common-user facility in August 2003.

Since 2014, the telescope is owned by the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC) and operated by the Southeastern Association for Research in Astronomy (SARA)[1] which has retrofitted JKT as a remotely operated observatory (under the internal designation SARA-RM), with the first new observations in this regime in April 2016.

Timeline

Summary:[2]

  • 1984-2003 ING
  • 2003-2014 occasional project use
  • January 2014, IAC ownership
  • 2015, resumed operations as robotic telescope for SARA

Views
Observation through the telescope, 1985.

See also

References
  1. "The 1.0-m Jacobus Kapteyn Telescope (JKT)". Isaac Newton Group of Telescopes. 8 August 2014.
  2. "Jacobus Kapteyn Telescope". www.ing.iac.es. Retrieved 2019-10-17.
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