Lulin Widefield Telescope

Sharing the summit of Mount Lulin with its larger neighbour, the Lulin Widefield Telescope scans wide swaths of Taiwan's night sky in an automated hunt for faint, fast-changing objects.

About Lulin Widefield Telescope

The Lulin Widefield Telescope is a 0.4-metre astrograph with a focal ratio of 3.8, fitted with a large-format CCD that gives it a 2 square-degree field of view — far wider than a typical research telescope. It is located at Lulin Observatory on Mount Lulin, Taiwan, and operated by the Graduate Institute of Astronomy at National Central University.

Telescopes & research

Running semi-automatically, the telescope can reach a limiting magnitude of about 19.1 in V-band with a 300-second exposure under new-moon conditions. It is part of the GROWTH network and other automated telescope survey collaborations, using commercial software such as SkyX, MaxIm DL and ACP alongside in-house Python code to manage its observations.

Location & getting there

The telescope sits alongside Lulin Observatory near the summit of Mount Lulin in Taiwan, in the Asia region, at a site chosen for its dark, high-altitude skies. See the map on this page for directions.

Visiting Lulin Widefield Telescope

As a semi-automatic survey instrument operated by National Central University, it is best to check with the university or Lulin Observatory directly for any visiting or tour information before travelling.

See your named star from here

Wide-field survey telescopes like this one are built to scan large areas of sky quickly, but the same optics can just as easily be pointed at one set of coordinates. If you've named a star with Star Register, you can find its position in our catalogue.