- Atacama Pathfinder Experiment
Infobox Observatory
name = Atacama Pathfinder Experiment (APEX)
caption = One of the APEX telescopes
organization =Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy (50%),Onsala Space Observatory (23%), ESO (27%)
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location =Atacama desert , northernChile
coords = coord|23|00|21|S|67|45|32|W|region:CL_type:landmark|display=inline,title
altitude = 5100 m
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website = [http://www.apex-telescope.org/ www.apex-telescope.org]
telescope1_name =
telescope1_type =
telescope2_name =
telescope2_type = The Atacama Pathfinder Experiment (APEX) is aradio telescope located at 5,100 meters above sea level, atLlano de Chajnantor Observatory in theAtacama desert , in northernChile , 50 kilometers to the east ofSan Pedro de Atacama .The APEX telescope is a modified ALMA (Atacama Large Millimeter Array) prototype antenna and is located at the future site of the ALMA observatory. It is designed to work at sub-millimetre wavelengths, in the 0.2 to 1.5 mm range. The main dish has a diameter of 12 meters and consists of 264 aluminium panels with an average surface accuracy of 17 micrometres (r.m.s.).
APEX is a collaboration between the
Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy (MPIfR) at 50%,Onsala Space Observatory (OSO) at 23%, and the European Organisation for Astronomical Research in the Southern Hemisphere (ESO) at 27%. The telescope was designed and constructed byVERTEX Antennentechnik GmbH (Germany ), under contract by MPIfR, and is based on a prototype antenna constructed for the ALMA project. Operation of APEX in Chajnantor is entrusted to ESO.APEX was officially inaugurated on
September 25 ,2005 .External links
* [http://www.apex-telescope.org/ Official site]
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