The ESO New Technology Telescope

Summary

The ESO New Technology Telescope (NTT) is an Alt-Az, 3.58m Richey-Chretien telescope which pioneered the use of active optics. The telescope and its enclosure had a revolutionary design for optimal image quality.

The ESO New Technology Telescope, NTT, was commissioned in 1989, and completely upgraded in 1997 (Big Bang). It has an alt-az mounting, and two Nasmyth focii, which host two instruments. SUSI2 is mounted on Nasmyth A, while since 21 June 2008 EFOSC2 is mounted on Nasmyth B. The pointing error is about 1.5" RMS, but degradation occurs close to zenith and at zenith angle larger than 60 degrees. The pointing is limited to 70deg. zenithal distance, and 3 degrees from zenith.

News and Updates

Read the News and Updates page with list of description and addresses of the last modifications of NTT Operations on-line documentation:

Current Instruments

The NTT hosts the following instruments:

• SofI: Son of ISAAC, a large field Infra-Red (1-2.5 micron) spectro-imager;
  See also the Array Information
• EFOSC2: ESO Faint Object Spectrograph and Camera;
  See also the CCD Information

Decommissionned Instruments

• SuSi-2: Superb Seeing Imager - 2, a high-resolution imager;
• EMMI: ESO Multi-Mode Instrument, a multi-mode spectro-imager, from grism to echelle;
• SUSI-1;
• IRSPEC.

Content of these Pages

The following items are available on the NTT pages, using the bar on the left.

• Telescope Overview: General Information about the telescope and its active optics, including
  Detailed technical information on NTT. People interested in the call for proposal for next NTT instrument should look here.
• Information for Observers
• Telescope Operations