Mercator Telescope

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The Mercator Telescope is a 1.2m telescope, operated by the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (Leuven University), Belgium, in collaboration with the Observatory of the University of Geneva. It is named after Gerard Mercator, famous cartographer.

The telescope contains three different measuring devices. First of all, there is the MEROPE CCD camera. This camera has a field of view of 6.5 by 6.5 minutes of arc and has a size of 2159 by 2048 pixels. The filters used together with this camera are according to the so called geneva photometric sysyem. The second instrument on the Mercator Telescope is the P7 photometer. The photometer can measure in the 7 band Geneva photometric system. It measures the star in one channel and the sky in another so that the sky can be subtracted. The filter wheel is turning at a rate of 4 Hz, changing between the filtersof the photometric system. The third, and final, instrument which will be on the Mercator Telescope is the HERMES echelle spectrograph. It will be able to cover a wavelength range between 380 and 875 nm.