A 45cm monster

SCHWARTZ M.A; ET AL. 16 AUTORES TOTAL; ORELLANA, M.

Mazagón (Huelva)

Workshop; V Workshop on robotic autonomous observatories; 2017

Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucia, Universidad de Huelva, CSIC

or 17 years, Rafael Montemayor,engineer and PhD in Physics, dedicated his free time to design and build a telescope aiming to use it for making the best possible images of the night sky of Bariloche, in the province of Rio Negro, Argentina. The result of those years of dedication and effort was a beautiful precision mechanical work that he could not finish because of a terminal illness. Rafael´s family decided to fulfill his wish and donated the Telescope to the Faculty of Astronomical and Geophysical Sciences Of the National University of La Plata in April 2014. The Faculty took the initiative to conclude with the construction and automation of the telescope to be used in scientific, teaching and outreach work. The Rafael Montemayor Telescope (RMT) had its first light on August 26,2017. Its automation will be completed by the half of 2018. After that, the use of the RMT will be tested for a period of three months on the campus of the Faculty in La Plata before changing facilities to a site of good conditions for astronomical observation.