Korea Microlensing Telescope Network-SAAO

At the South African Astronomical Observatory's site in Sutherland, another of the three KMTNet telescopes keeps watch over the crowded star fields of the Galactic bulge.

About Korea Microlensing Telescope Network-SAAO

Korea Microlensing Telescope Network-SAAO is a 1.6-metre wide-field telescope hosted at the South African Astronomical Observatory (SAAO) in Sutherland, South Africa. It's one of three identical telescopes, positioned near latitude -30°, that together form the Korea Microlensing Telescope Network (KMTNet).

Telescopes & research

The telescope carries a mosaic of four 9k-by-9k pixel CCD cameras for a roughly four-square-degree field of view and a pixel scale of 0.4 arcseconds. Operating since 2015, it spends around eight months a year continuously monitoring the Galactic bulge for the gravitational microlensing signals that reveal distant exoplanets, and is also used for spectrophotometry of near-Earth asteroids outside the bulge-observing season.

Location & getting there

The telescope sits within the South African Astronomical Observatory's Sutherland site, one of the Southern Hemisphere's premier dark-sky astronomical locations.

Visiting Korea Microlensing Telescope Network-SAAO

Sutherland hosts organised public tours of its observatory site, though individual research telescopes such as this one are generally viewed rather than operated by visitors; check SAAO's official visitor information before planning a trip.

See your named star from here

Every night this telescope locks onto precise coordinates in the southern sky in search of exoplanets, the same kind of coordinates that come with naming a star. Name a star with Star Register and browse the catalogue to see it for yourself.