The Atacama Cosmology Telescope (ACT) is a custom six-meter telescope that is located in northern Chile.
It has the following properties (Swetz et al. 2010): (link is external)
PHYSICAL PROPERTIES OF THE TELESCOPE AND OPTICS
Telescope Properties | Location | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Telescope height | 12 m | Altitude | 5190 m |
| Ground screen height | 13 m | Longitude | 67° 47' 15"W |
| Total mass | 52 t | Latitude | 22° 57' 31"S |
| Moving Structure mass | 40 t |
Optics
f-numbera | 2.5 | Azimuth range | ±220° |
FOV | 1 deg2 | Max. az speed | 2°/s |
Primary reflector Dia | 6m | Max. az acc. | 10°/s2 |
No. primary panels | 71 | Elev. range | 30.°5 - 60° |
Secondary reflector Dia | 2m | Max. elev speed | 0.2°/s |
No. secondary panels | 11 |
aAt telescope Gregorian focus
ACT observes simultaneously in three frequency bands centered on 148 GHz, 218 GHz, and 277 GHz. These are often called AR1, AR2, and AR3 respectively. Celestial radiation in each band is imaged onto 32 X 32 arrays of transition-edge sensor (TES) bolometers. The arrays have the following properties: