Cerro Tololo Inter–American Observatory

(se -roh toh-loh -loh) (CTIO) A US observatory near La Serena, Chile, at an altitude of 2200 meters. It is run by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy (AURA), which operates through the National Optical Astronomical Observatory. Its principal instruments are a 4-meter reflecting telescope, the Victor Blanco Telescope, which began operating in 1976, and two smaller reflectors, one 1.5 meters in aperture and the other 0.9 meter. The 4-meter telescope has a Cer-Vit primary mirror, with Cassegrain (f/8), infrared (f/30), and prime (f/2.7) foci, on an equatorial mounting. The observatory also operates a Schmidt telescope at this site. Nearby Cerro Pachón is the location of the Gemini South telescope (see Gemini telescopes) and the SOAR Telescope.

Collins Dictionary of Astronomy © Market House Books Ltd, 2006

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Millis, director of the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Ariz., and his colleagues discovered 2001 KX76 in images from a survey of the Kuiper belt taken by a 4-meter telescope at Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in La Serena, Chile.

A new giant in the Kuiper belt

The Southern Hemisphere APASS system is at Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory (CTIO) in Chile, where Dan Reichart (University of North Carolina) is loaning us an empty dome and spare Paramount ME.

The AAVSO's new sky survey: the world's premier variable-star organization begins its second century with one of the greatest photometric surveys ever undertaken

Wittman of Bell Laboratories in Murray Hill, N.J., and his colleagues examined 145,000 distant galaxies at the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in La Serena, Chile.

Galaxies shine light on dark matter

In one instance, this revolution was the outcome of simply providing a dark-skies kit to a teacher in Chile, as part of a well organized effort through the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory to work with schools in regions near astronomical sites.

Our light or starlight? Children can play key roles in raising awareness about light pollution

Suntzeff of the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in La Serena, Chile, announced the discovery of the supernova--officially designated SN 1999fv--in a Nov.

New supernova goes the cosmic distance

The three-year search, much of it on foot or horseback, led to the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory, with Stock himself as its first director.

Stock answer

Mendez of the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory near La Serena, Chile, and Dante Minniti of the Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile in Santiago analyzed single images of both the Hubble Deep Fields, North and South.

Have Milky Way MACHOs Been Found?

The wide-field image on the facing page, taken with the 4-meter telescope of the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile, shows the nebula's familiar bright heart, centered on the Trapezium quadruple star so well known to backyard telescope users.

Catching Orion's bullets: something hidden in the Great Orion Nebula has been firing blobs at 400 kilometers per second

Using a 4-meter telescope at the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in La Serena, Chile, Polomski and her colleagues have found that since 1997, the amount of mid-infrared radiation emitted by dust surrounding the star has doubled.

Eta Carinae's star turn puzzles astronomers

The team used the 0.9-meter telescope at the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile to measure the distances to the red dwarfs using the classic trigonometric parallax method.

New solar neighbors

Hartmann of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Mass., used a 4-meter telescope at the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in La Serena, Chile.

Dust disks hint at baby solar system

The photo takes me back many years to a night with the 4-meter (157-inch) reflector at the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile.

The Perseus double cluster