The Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory (CTIO) is an astronomical observatory located on the summit of Mt. Cerro Tololo in the Coquimbo Region of northern Chile, with additional facilities located on Mt. Cerro Pachón about to the southeast. It is approximately east of La Serena, where support facilities are located.

The principal telescopes at CTIO are the 4 m Víctor M. Blanco Telescope, named after Puerto Rican astronomer Víctor Manuel Blanco, and the 4.1 m Southern Astrophysical Research Telescope, which is situated on Cerro Pachón. under Gerard Kuiper. He went to the semi-arid region of Coquimbo, South of the Atacama Desert, and climbed numerous mountains, carrying a Danjon telescope and an interferometer to determine visibility and accurately measure the wavelength of light.

  • Las Cumbres Observatory Global Telescope Network operates three and two telescopes at Cerro Tololo.

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On the morning of Saturday, December 7, 2013, Luis González, a research assistant at the University of Chile, discovered what would later be confirmed as a supernova by José Maza, an astronomer at University of Chile and a researcher for CATA (Centro de Astrofísica y Tecnologías Afines or “Centre for Astrophysics and Related Technologies”). The supernova is the first discovery to be made by the CATA 500, a robotic telescope designed and operated by a Chilean team located in Santiago, approximately 500 kilometres to the south. It is part of the GLORIA project, which provides open access to astronomers from around the world to a network of remotely operated robotic telescopes.

The new supernova lies in the galaxy ESO 365-G16, located 370 million light years from Earth, and has a mass eight times that of the Sun.

Gomez's Hamburger, believed to be a young star surrounded by a protoplanetary disk, was discovered in 1985 on sky photographs obtained by Arturo Gomez, support technical staff at the Observatory.

thumb|center|500px|A program of NOIRLab has published a mammoth survey of the galactic plane of the Milky Way.

See also

  • List of astronomical observatories
  • List of highest astronomical observatories
  • Other observatories in Chile:
  • Atacama Large Millimeter Array
  • Cerro Armazones Observatory (Very Large Telescope, Extremely Large Telescope)
  • Cerro El Roble Astronomical Station
  • La Silla Observatory
  • Las Campanas Observatory
  • Llano de Chajnantor Observatory (Atacama Large Millimeter Array)
  • Paranal Observatory
  • MEarth Project
  • MCELS (Magellanic Cloud Emission-line Survey)
  • Tololo 1247-232 - One of only two known Lyman continuum photons emitters

References

  • Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory Home Page
  • SOAR Telescope Home Page
  • Gemini Observatory Home Page
  • Small and Moderate Aperture Research Telescope System (SMARTS)
  • Coordinates for Observatories on Cerro Tololo and Cerro Pachon