Canada–France–Hawaii Telescope
The Canada–France–Hawaii Telescope is located near the summit of Mauna Kea mountain on Hawaii's Big Island at an altitude of 4,204 meters, part of the Mauna Kea Observatory. Operational since 1979, the telescope is a Prime Focus/Cassegrain configuration with a usable aperture diameter of.
CFHT is currently considering a refurbishment to the facility in the 2020s. The facility would be reconstructed with a new 11-meter telescope to produce the Maunakea Spectroscopic Explorer, retaining the same base building and infrastructure. First light is expected no earlier than 2029.
Funding
The corporation is bound by a tripartite agreement between the University of Hawaii at Manoa, in the United States, the National Research Council in Canada and the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique in France. CFHT also has partnerships with the National Astronomical Observatory of China, the Academia Sinica Institute of Astronomy and Astrophysics in Taiwan, the National Laboratory of Astrophysics in Brazil and the Korea Astronomy and Space Science Institute in Korea. The contributions from these associate partners help fund CFHT's future instrumentation. Currently, CFHT observing time is offered to scientists from all the seven countries in the partnership. Astronomers from the European Union can also submit proposals through the Optical Infrared Coordination Network for Astronomy access program.Instruments
CFHT currently operates five instruments:- MegaPrime/MegaCam, a one-square-degree field high-resolution CCD mosaic of 40 CCDs totalling 378 megapixels
- WIRCam, an infrared mosaic of 4 detectors totalling 16 megapixels, optimized for the J, H, and K spectral bands
- ESPaDOnS, an echelle spectrograph/spectropolarimeter
- SITELLE, a wide-field Fourier transform spectrograph
- SPIRou, a near-infrared spectropolarimeter
Notable discoveries