Steward Observatory Lab Casts Mirror for San Pedro Mártir Telescope

San Pedro Martir Observatory

View from a telescope at San Pedro Martir Observatory, Mexico. (Photo: University of Arizona/Steward Observatory)

Astronomers from the United States and Mexico will converge on the UA on Aug. 26 to celebrate the casting of the 6.5-meter mirro that will be used for the San Pedro Martir Telescope.

By Lori Stiles, University Communications August 11, 2009

An international collaboration of astronomers from the United States and Mexico will gather at The University of Arizona Steward Observatory Mirror Laboratory in Tucson on Aug. 26 to celebrate the casting of a 6.5-meter mirror they plan to use in a proposed infrared sky survey at one of the darkest sky sites in the world.

Steward Observatory is casting the 6.5-meter (21.3-foot) “honeycomb” sandwich mirror for a future telescope planned for San Pedro Mártir Observatory in Baja California, México. The telescope is called the San Pedro Mártir Telescope, or SPMT.

Project partners are Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, known as UNAM, the University of California, the Instituto Nacional de Astrofìsica, Ôptica y Electrònica, known as INAOE and the UA.

The group intends to survey the entire northern sky repeatedly at infrared wavelengths to reveal the most distant objects in the universe and the dynamic night sky as never before with their project, called the Synoptic All-Sky Infrared Imaging Survey, or SASIR.