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The Telescopio Nazionale Galileo, or TNG, is a 3.58m Italian telescope located on the island of San Miguel de La Palma (or, more simply, La Palma), in the Canary Islands archipelago. It is one of the largest telescopes hosted by the Roque de los Muchachos Observatory, a very important observing site in the northern hemisphere. It is now operated by the "Fundación Galileo Galilei, Fundación Canaria", a no-profit institution which manages the telescope on behalf of INAF, the Italian National Institute of Astrophysics. The telescope saw its first light in 1998. Observations at the TNG can be proposed through the Italian Time Allocation Committee (TAC) which assigns, based on the scientific merit of the proposals, 75% of the available time. The rest of the time is at disposal of the Spanish and international astronomical communities. The TNG is open to new proposals two times a year, typically in March–April and September–October. ==Technical characteristics== The TNG is an altazimuthal reflecting telescope with a Ritchey-Chretien optical configuration and a flat tertiary mirror feeding two opposite Nasmyth foci. It has a design derived from the New Technology Telescope (NTT), an ESO 4-meters class telescope located in La Silla (Chile). Therefore, the optical quality of the telescope is ensured by an active optics system performing real-time corrections of the optical components and compensating, in particular, for the deformations of the primary mirror, which is too thin to be completely rigid. The interface between the telescope fork and the instruments at both Nasmyth foci is provided by two rotator/adapters. Their main function is to compensate for the field rotation by a mechanical counter rotation. The best quality of the TNG is that all the available instruments are permanently mounted at the telescope. This guarantees flexibility during an observing session, since it is possible to change instrument during the night with a loss of time limited to a few minutes. The science based on observational data from the TNG is varied. Proposed observing programs go from the study of the planets and minor bodies of the solar system up to researches of cosmological interest (e.g. large-scale structure of the Universe and systems of galaxies). 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア(Wikipedia)』 ■ウィキペディアで「Telescopio Nazionale Galileo」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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