OGS Telescope

The OGS (Optical Ground Station) telescope, installed in the Teide Observatory, has been built by Carl Zeiss, is owned by ESA (European Space Agency) and is operated by the IAC (Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias).

The telescope is a 1m Ritchey-Chretien / Coudé telescope supported by an English-built mount inside a dome 12.5 m in diameter. Its main purposes are:

1. to be the optical ground station of the Artemis telecommunications satellite (the project from which the telescope takes its name)
2. to make surveys of space debris in different orbits around the Earth,
3. to test observing strategies of near-Earth objects as part of ESA's Space Situational Awareness programme, and
4. to make scientific astronomical night observations.

External links

• http://www.iac.es/eno.php?op1=3&op2=6&lang=en&id=7
• http://sci.esa.int/science-e/www/object/index.cfm?fobjectid=36520
• http://vmo.estec.esa.int/totas

See also

• List of largest optical telescopes in the 20th century