Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory

Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory (CTIO) An observatory at an altitude of 2215 m on Cerro Tololo mountain, Chile, 55 km southeast of La Serena, where its headquarters are. Founded in 1963, it is part of the US National Optical Astronomy Observatory. Cerro Tololo's main instrument is the 4-m Blanco Telescope, opened in 1974, named after the observatory's first director, the American astronomer Victor Manuel Blanco (1918– ). This telescope is the southern twin of the 4-m instrument at Kitt Peak National Observatory. Other instruments include a 1.5-m reflector, opened in 1968; a 1.3-m reflector originally used for the Two-Micron All-Sky Survey, opened in 1997 but transferred to CTIO ownership in 2001; a 0.9-m reflector, opened in 1967; Yale University's 1-m reflector, installed here in 1973; and the University of Michigan's 0.6-m Curtis Schmidt, originally opened in 1950 but moved here in 1967. The 1.5‐m, 1.3‐m, 1‐m, and 0.9‐m have been operated since 2003 by the Small and Moderate Aperture Research Telescope System (SMARTS) consortium of US institutions. The Curtis Schmidt is closed. CTIO also operates the 4.1-m Southern Astrophysical Research (SOAR) Telescope on Cerro Pachón, a peak 10 km to the southeast of Cerro Tololo. http://www.ctio.noao.edu/

Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory , astronomical observatory located on Cerro Tololo peak, Chile, with offices in La Serena, about 40 mi (64 km) to the west. Funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF), it is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy (AURA), which also operates such other major national observatories as the Kitt Peak National Observatory in Arizona. The principal instrument is a 158-in. (4-m) reflecting telescope, the largest in the Southern Hemisphere and the twin of the 158-in. (4-m) reflector at Kitt Peak. Other equipment of the observatory includes 60-in. (1.5-m), 36-in. (0.9-m), and twin 16-in. (0.4-m) reflectors and the 24-in. (0.6-m) Curtis-Schmidt camera formerly at the Univ. of Michigan. Also at Cerro Tololo, a half mile from the summit, is a 24-in. (0.6-m) reflector belonging to the Lowell Observatory. Additional telescopes are planned for the 1990s, including a 161 in. (4.1-m) telescope from Columbia Univ. and a new 26-ft (8-m) reflector.

CTIO Abbr. for Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory.