Astrophysics (Index)About

William Herschel Telescope

(WHT, Herschel Telescope)
(4.2-meter telescope in the Canary Islands)

The William Herschel Telescope (or WHT or Herschel Telescope) is a 4.2-meter monolithic-mirror optical/near-infrared reflector telescope in the Canary Islands, operated by the Isaac Newton Group of Telescopes (ING). It came into service in 1987 as the world's fourth largest telescope and was early among modern large telescopes to use an altazimuth mount. WHT has now been dedicated to the multi-object spectrograph, WEAVE (for WHT Enhanced Area Velocity Explorer), which it will use whenever the instrument is operational, much of that time for WEAVE-based surveys. In 2023, WHT was dedicated to WEAVE's commissioning, which continues through 2024. Possibly some science has been carried out during WEAVE test runs. WHT instruments listed before installation of WEAVE:

Some of the above may be available for science when WEAVE maintenance allows for such use. Some of WHT's earlier-listed (past) instruments:


Another Herschel is the Herschel Space Observatory.


(telescope,reflector,visible light,infrared,ground,Canary Islands)
Further reading:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Herschel_Telescope
http://www.ing.iac.es/Astronomy/telescopes/wht/
https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1987JBAA...98....8W/abstract
https://pages.astronomy.ua.edu/keel/telescopes/lapalma.html

Referenced by pages:
Herschel Space Observatory
integral field spectrograph
integral field unit (IFU)
Isaac Newton Group of Telescopes (ING)
Isaac Newton Telescope (INT)
monolithic mirror
Ritchey-Chrétien telescope (RCT)
Roque de los Muchachos Observatory (ORM)
WEAVE

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